


The Dressmaker's Bride

by Mikkeneko



Category: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-28 15:12:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sakura investigates an old, run-down mansion in her neighborhood and surprised to find that a new girl has moved in. Tomoyo Daidouji is a girl who has it all; wealth, beauty, taste. What could she possibly see in a poor little tomboy like Sakura?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cloverfield for the Secret Santa challenge. This is an AU of Card Captor Sakura where Sakura never became Master of the Clow.

Sakura climbed carefully through the thornbrake, making sure to press the thorny whips of raspberry canes flat with her sneakers before she pushed forward. The little scrapes and scratches didn't bother her overmuch - she led an enthusiastic outdoor lifestyle that often gifted her with scrapes, bruises, and sunburns of all description - but she wanted to be sure to save her jeans and t-shirt. She'd finally stopped growing this year - finally, at age 14 she'd had enough! - and she wouldn't be getting any more new clothes if she wore these out.

She made it to the other side of the thicket and balanced precipitously on the edge of a sharp incline; at the bottom of the ditch ran a square concrete gutter, water trickling through it despite the heavy heat of high summer overhead. It was August and summer vacation had just begun, four long weeks off from school and with nothing else to fill them. All of Sakura's friends from school had their own plans for the holiday, attending lessons or practices or going with their families on vacations, but for Sakura the weeks ahead promised to be long, empty, and dull.

Sakura hopped easily across the ditch and scrambled up the opposite side, reaching up to grasp the branches of the young trees growing on the bank to pull herself up. Once she reached the top of the rise the ground leveled out, and the scrub and nettles gave way to a long, smooth slope of lawn. At the top of the rise again she caught a glimpse of stern, peaked tile roofs; below them were smooth brick walls set with dozens of glittering windows, and then the ground floor was masked by dozens of neatly trimmed flowering bushes and trees.

The old Fujitaka estate; Sakura had been here a few times before, when she was much younger, but it had looked quite different then. The estate had been abandoned for years before Sakura was even born, the house decrepit and crumbling and the grounds choked with weeds. Old gossip said that the Fujitaka clan had moved abruptly away when the family fell on some hardship; while not exactly haunted, enough of an aura of unpleasantness and disgrace had hovered around the grounds that no one had wanted to buy them.

But apparently, someone had. It was hearing that rumor that had driven Sakura out here today, that and the boredom of the weeks she faced ahead. The landscape had changed a bit since she'd last been out here, and she'd had to scramble over a few fences and under a ditch or two to sneak unseen onto the mansion grounds. Now that she was here she felt suddenly guilty and obvious, and horribly out of place in her grubby jeans and sneakers.

Curiosity drew her on despite the guilt, at least for now; the plush green lawn squished under her feet as she wandered around the lawns looking up at the back and sides of the grand house. All the former traces of decay were gone, with all-new siding installed and the windows washed crystal clear. As she approached the house she realized that the ground floor had even more windows than the top floors did, huge glass panels that let the light of the sun and the full panorama of the gardens outside into whoever might be looking out.

A flash of light off a smooth-moving car caught Sakura's gaze, drawing her attention to the long paved driveway winding away towards the main road. She hurried around the corner of the house the other way, not wanting to be seen. The back of the house was well shaded and cool from the abundance of trees, and a riot of color bloomed from a row along one wall.

Fascinated Sakura walked towards it, and the profusion of colors resolved itself into a rose garden. Sakura knew what roses looked like, of course, but she'd never seen an actual living rosebush before. She'd never imagined so many different shapes and shades of green, from a dark forest green with silver-gilt edges to a bright verdant color that showed up like jewels against the dark thorny stems. Nor had she imagined that roses could possibly come in so many colors; not just red and pink but white and yellow, orange and peach with deeper red cores and faint dark stains along the very edges of the petals.

The scent of the roses was heady and overpowering, sharp in the damp hot air of the garden. Drawn to the brilliant colors Sakura drew closer, reaching up to pull one bobbing heady rose-stem towards her to study the flower in more detail.

"Oh, hello!" a voice called out from nearby. Sakura gasped and snatched her hand back, flinching as the rose's thorns caught and dragged up her thumb. She closed her hand in a tight fist and his her hands behind her back, like a guilty child, as she looked around wildly for the source of the voice.

A large, tiled area was recessed into the side of the house, with two wings of the mansion flanking it in a horseshoe shape. In the middle was something like an indoor garden, or perhaps a gazebo with a roof shading it overhead and screen panels closing it off from the main garden. The screen doors were wide open now, though, and in the shadow of the pavilion Sakura could make out the glowing pale figure of someone seated at a table there.

It was a girl, slender and delicate, pale-skinned and dark-haired. She appeared to be not much older than Sakura herself, although unlike the ratty street clothes Sakura was wearing - or even the colorful, haphazard clothes that Sakura's school friends wore on the rare occasion they escaped the school uniform - she was wearing a long elegant dress that swirled all the way down to the floor.

"I - I'm sorry!" Sakura stammered, squeezing her fist closed as her thumb throbbed. "I wasn't going to pick anything, I promise! They were just so beautiful, I wanted to get a closer look…"

The girl laughed, a silvery tinkling sound. "It's all right. I don't mind at all. I just wasn't expecting to see such a cute girl wandering through my garden, that's all."

"Cute?" Sakura blushed a little in spite of herself.

"Of course you're cute," the stranger asserted firmly. "Please come and join me. I was just sitting down to tea. I'd love to have some company, I've been ever so lonely."

"Well… are you sure?" Sakura's panic was beginning to fade, although her guilt throbbed harder than ever. "I mean, I know I wasn't invited…"

"Quite sure," the girl replied. "All the best things in our lives come to us uninvited. I'm Tomoyo. What's your name?"

"Sakura," she replied, coming forward cautiously and stepping off the thick grass into the cool hollowed tiles of the pavilion.

Up close, Tomoyo's dress was even more breathtaking than she had thought. It was no mere summer sundress but a full-length gown, layers of white lace and shimmering blue fabric interspersing themselves in a complex pattern. White petticoats peeked out from the bottom of the skirt, atop blue satin slippers of a surprisingly small and dainty size. The white lace had a subtle floral pattern to its stitching, and as her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light she saw the buttons of the cuffs and front were dark blue roses. Shining ribbons crisscrossed the front of the vest, snug and mostly flat across her small-boned frame, dancing upwards in an intricate pattern to a high collar that closed nearly at her chin.

She wore gloves, too, white satin gloves that hugged her hands and arms as though they'd been painted on, running up her wrists and arms to disappear into the full, ruffled cuffs of her sleeves. Completing the picture was a wide-brimmed hat with white and blue flowers adorning the crown. Under the brim of the hat, shining black hair poured in waves over her shoulders. Tomoyo's features were astonishingly pretty and delicate; she had a small nose and delicate lips now stretched in a beaming smile. But the smile was almost drowned out by her enormous eyes, not brown or black like most people Sakura knew but an incredible deep, vivid violet.

"Does it hurt very badly?" Tomoyo said.

"Huh?" Sakura paused in the process of lowering herself into the delicate chair opposite Tomoyo's.

"Your hand." Tomoyo nodded at Sakura's left hand, and Sakura reluctantly brought it up and opened her fist. She'd been hoping Tomoyo hadn't seen her reaching for that rose. The thorn had torn a shallow, but long gash along the ball of her thumb, and it had bled enough to stain the rest of her fingers when she had closed her hand into a fist.

"Oh, dear." Tomoyo tsked. "I can have the maids bring a first-aid kit…"

"No, really, it's not that bad," Sakura said, embarrassed at the thought of having to explain how she'd come by the wound to anyone else - or even explain how she had come to be here in the first place. "It doesn't hurt at all any more, thanks."

"Still, you can't just leave it like this, who knows what kind of dirt and germs it could pick up?" Tomoyo leaned across the table, her eyes strangely intent. She dipped the corner of a white, lacy handkerchief into a cup of water, then reached out to take Sakura's hand in both of hers. In neat, gentle motions she dabbed at the blood drying on Sakura's hand to wash it clean without getting a single drop of blood on her white gloves. The bloodstained handkerchief disappeared somewhere, and Tomoyo produced a second one to tie neatly around the cut. "There we go."

"Thanks," Sakura said, closing her fingers around the smooth, silky fabric of the handkerchief. Tomoyo was smiling at her, and somehow that smile made her feel restless and prickly, and so she blurted out - "Your clothes are really nice! Where did you buy them?"

"I made them." Tomoyo's smile widened, obviously pleased at the compliment.

"Really? All by yourself?" Sakura was flabbergasted. "But, they're so beautiful! When me and my friends go downtown we see some of the college girls wearing clothes like that to go shopping. There are some stores down there that sell all sorts of really fancy Lolita clothing and it's worth a fortune!"

"It's something of a hobby of mine. I quite enjoy sewing," Tomoyo said calmly. "The fashions have changed from the ones I really prefer, but I do like some of the clothing that the Angelic Pretty and Princess Princess brands put out. Still, overall I prefer to make my own dresses, so that I can implement my own styles."

"They really suit you," Sakura said with feeling, and she meant it. The Lolita girls that she had usually seen tended to wear dresses with short, fluffy skirts that emphasized how young and cute they were supposed to look; and instead of hats they usually wore either wide lace headbands or tiny, gaudy hats fastened to the side of the head like an oversized barrette. By contrast, Tomoyo's long, sweeping skirts and wide-brimmed hats made her look not like a little girl but like a lady; not kitschy but mature and elegant. "I bet you could make a lot of money selling dresses like yours!"

Tomoyo laughed, a tinkling musical sound, and Sakura flushed. Too late she realized how that made her sound, as though money were the only thing she ever thought about. "I mean, I didn't mean…" she mumbled. "I guess you don't really need any more money…"

"Even if I could, what would I do with it?" Tomoyo asked. "But it's really just a hobby, I'm afraid. I much prefer to sew for my own pleasure, instead of working to satisfy some fashion designer's idea of what the newest hot trend will be. I would love to make some clothes for you some time, though," she added earnestly.

"Me?" Sakura stared at Tomoyo in astonishment. "Me? But why?"

"Because you would make such a lovely model, of course!" Tomoyo exclaimed with enthusiasm. "You are so lovely, and so vivacious. You would be even more beautiful in clothes that I could design for you."

Sakura blushed hotly then, feeling more grubby than ever in her dirty jeans and tattered jacket. The past few years of growth had left her gawky and oddly shaped in some parts, alternately lumpy and bony while she impatiently waited for the rest of adulthood to fill her in. She simply couldn't imagine herself in a beautiful, elegant dress like the one Tomoyo wore so effortlessly. "I couldn't," she mumbled. "I mean, it's nice of you to say, but…"

"I would love to," Tomoyo said firmly. "You must come by again, and come to my studio where I can take measurements and create a few sketches for you. I would take you there right now, but I'm afraid I wasn't expecting company this afternoon - the place is not fit for visitors…" Tomoyo trailed off, and her eyes widened as her gloved hand flew to her mouth.

"Oh, my goodness!" she exclaimed. "What a terrible host I've been! Here I've been talking your ear off about dresses and designs that don't interest you at all, and I haven't offered you anything to eat or drink! Please, do forgive me…" Before Sakura could stop her, Tomoyo raised a hand; at some subtle signal, a tall woman in a black-and-white maid's outfit appeared from the glass doors and hurried to their table.

"We shall have tea," Tomoyo announced, sounding like a royal pronouncement. She glanced over at her guest. "What would you like to eat, Sakura?"

Sakura blinked. "Um - whatever you have, I guess," she said nervously. She was the guest - of course she would eat whatever was put in front of her. "I don't mind…"

"I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific than that," Tomoyo laughed. "I'm afraid I'm not up-to-date on what teenagers like to eat nowadays. Do you like tea? Japanese or Western style? What flavor?"

"Uh… I like raspberry tea," Sakura stuttered. "And - um - mochi, if you have some."

"Of course." The maid disappeared again, and Tomoyo's luminous violet eyes turned back on Sakura. "Now then, Sakura, tell me about yourself."

And Sakura did. For an long, uncounted magical time in that beautiful garden she forgot her shyness and embarrassment, and chattered on to Tomoyo like they had been friends for years. She rattled on happily about her school and her friends, about her hobbies and baton club and her brother and  _his_ friends. Tomoyo had a way of putting her at ease, an aura of profound calm that made it easy to talk to her and tell her everything.

The maid reappeared quickly and discreetly with a tray of snacks - Tomoyo drank tea, but did not eat, and Sakura wondered if she was on a diet like so many of her school friends nowadays. It made her feel uncomfortable to eat when Tomoyo wasn't, but the her friend simply assured her that she would eat later, after Sakura had gone.

"Oh - it's getting late!" Sakura exclaimed, glancing quickly at the pink plastic watch on her wrist. The golden afternoons were deceptively long, but she'd been her for hours chatting with a girl she'd never met before today. Sakura took a final gulp of her tea and jumped up, brushing crumbs off her hands and lap. "I really have to go…"

"Of course, I understand," Tomoyo said, although she sounded a little sad and disappointed. Sakura felt sorry for her; if she was the only girl their age in this huge house, no wonder she felt a little lonely sometimes. "Perhaps you'd like to come back another time, though. I'd love to have you."

"If you don't mind…" Sakura said shyly. She hesitated, not yet ready to ask what was on her mind, but if Tomoyo was inviting her… "I have baton club practice all afternoon tomorrow, but maybe later…"

"Ah, dear Sakura, you are so diligent," Tomoyo said smiling. "Practicing even when school isn't in session. I am sure that if you apply so much dedication when you are at club, you must be the star of your group!"

Sakura blushed again; Tomoyo seemed to do that to her a lot. "No, I'm not very good, really," she said sincerely. "I always drop the baton on my head! I need to practice a lot more before I get good… so although I don't want to, I really should go home now so I'm not late tomorrow!"

"Would you like a ride?" Tomoyo offered. "I can call a car and driver…"

"No, that's okay," Sakura said, already hopping down off the tiled porch to the lawn with more than a little regret. "The roads are kind of complicated, but it's much more direct just to go through the woods. I should go before it gets too dark, though!"

"Be careful," Tomoyo called to her, but she didn't leave the shade of the pavilion. Sakura tramped off across the lawn and through the brush at the edge of the woods, the warmth of Tomoyo's gaze still warming her cheeks.

 

\--------------

 

"I'm home," Sakura called out of habit, even though the apartment was empty except for her. The first thing she did was punch the aging aircon unit into life, and breathed a sigh of relief as she stood in the blast of cooler air until the worst of her overheating had passed off. She thought wistfully of the cool shade of Tomoyo's pavilion, of the wonderful fresh coldness inside her house, before she regretfully made herself move out of the stream of cold air into the stifling hot humidity of the rest of the apartment.

She shed her sneakers in the  _genkan_ , and as an afterthought stripped off her damp socks and grubby jacket and carried them over to the washing unit. Bundled together with some dirty dishtowels and some of Touya's jeans, they just about made a load. Sakura set the washer running, pulled on a fresh pair of socks and a new sweater, and took the broom leaning by the front door to sweep across the tiles.

Chores done, she wandered over to the kitchenette and opened the cabinets, frowning at the contents. They still had some rice, and bacon, and pickles in a dusty jar. She supposed she could do something with that; she wasn't an expert cook by any means, but she could work the rice cooker and fry bacon and assemble some kind of dinner for Touya when he got home. Touya would get paid tomorrow, so Sakura could go do some shopping while he was at work on Saturday.

Sakura closed the refrigerator door and stared at its grubby, magnet-strewn surface unseeing. It ought to have been more romantic, being an orphan. More exciting. It wasn't like there was any mystery about who her parents had been, and what she'd been born to be. Her mother had died when Sakura was too young to remember much more than a cloud of frizzy hair and a pair of softly perfumed arms. She'd been a magazine model, and framed pictures of her still shots had decorated every wall of the house while their father had been alive.

But her dad had died in a dig accident just five years ago, when Sakura was still in elementary school, and she remembered him vividly - it hurt to think too much about him, so she tried not to most of the time. Her older brother Touya had taken custody of her then, just barely eighteen himself; he'd dropped out of the rest of senior year of high school to care for her, passing on the chance of college to work to support them both. He always worked so hard - one job in the mornings and another in the evenings, and a few hours moonlighting the weekend rush in Three Bells down the street.

By the time he got home he was usually too tired to do very much, and the least Sakura could do was to keep the place clean and have dinner ready for him when he got home. He was a good big brother, and sometimes - a lot of the time - Sakura felt guilty for making him work so hard. Between his three jobs they had enough to scrape by - they never went hungry and the rent and bills got paid - but there was never much left over.

Sakura's clothes, now that she had finally stopped outgrowing them, were the same faded and worn set of jeans and jackets that she'd had last year. All of her clothes were like that, even her school uniform; even when clean they were worn ragged from use, but there was just no money to spare to replace them as long as they weren't falling off her. Sometimes when she was out with her friends Sakura would gaze wistfully past shelves of sparkly hair ribbons, cell phone charms and frilly bows, but there simply wasn't enough margin in their life to waste on such useless things.

There would certainly never be enough for beautiful dresses like Tomoyo's.

Abruptly Sakura abandoned the kitchen, leaving the rice cooker to bubble quietly to itself, and went into the living room to dig through the drawers behind the sofa. Under piles of old, too-small clothes and spare electrical cables and ancient, out-of-date phone books she found what she was looking for: a large leather wallet sealed with a clasp shaped like a pair of angel wings.

Sakura stroked the leathery suede gently, then wriggled the clasp open and opened the book.

It was a scrapbook of Nadeshiko's magazine shoots, the year before she'd gotten so sick. Sakura's father had persuaded the magazine's photo department to give him copies of the raw glossy images, free of obscuring text, and Sakura's restless fidgets quieted as she lost herself in the beautiful pictures.

She could hardly associate the pretty, smiling young face of Nadesiko with her dimly-remembered mother, but that didn't matter. The photos were so beautiful. Nadesiko posed delicately against vibrant, beautiful backgrounds of green grass and bright flowers, or subtle shade, or in front of bright brick buildings, or once on the top of a bridge with the sea and sky and one lone seagull hanging in the air above her shoulder. In every photo Nadesiko was wearing an elegant, beautiful dress or outfit; sometimes she had a hat or a purse or a clutch in her hands, sometimes nothing at all. There were all different styles, from a modern stylishly cut business suit to a pretty light green sundress, but in some of them she was wearing complex, fancy long dresses that looked like what Tomoyo had worn.

Sakura lost track of time, sitting there on the floor with her legs folded under her as she leafed through the wonderful pictures. She knew, intellectually, that these were all posed - that the clothes and accessories were provided by the advertisers, that every detail and angle was painstakingly set up by the photographer, that some of these locations weren't even real. But it felt like a window into another world, a world where beautiful women in fancy dresses could glide elegantly through perfectly sculptured landscapes. The world where Tomoyo lived.

The thump and rattle of the door opening startled her out of her daze, and she blinked up as Touya pushed his way into the apartment. "I'm back," he called out in a flat voice, weary by the long double-shift he'd put in. Fortunately the rice cooker had automatically gone to "hold-warm" while Sakura was distracted; Touya wandered into the kitchen sniffing at the enticing smells of the bacon set out to drain on the grill. "Did you have dinner, squirt?"

"No, I'll get some after you do," Sakura said. She closed the book, but not before Touya had caught sight of it. Hurriedly Sakura shoved some of the mess back towards the drawer with one foot. "I'll clean up here first."

"No need," Touya said, leaning tiredly against the kitchen counter and shoveling rice and pickles directly from the cooking pot into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks. "I hope you haven't been sitting here with your nose stuck in that book all day, or else you'll freeze that way. You could be a gargoyle, all twisted up like that."

Sakura bristled a bit at the familiar dry teasing, but she was too old by now to rise to such obvious bait. "I went out earlier!" she said indignantly.

"Where'd you go?" Touya dove headfirst into the refrigerator, the clinking of glass bottles a counterpart to his muffled words. "Anywhere good?"

"I went down to the old Fujitaka estate," Sakura said. "It's the Daidouji estate now, by the way. I met a girl there, Tomoyo."

"Daidouji?" Touya's head popped back over the counter, a bottle of lemonade in his hand. He took a swallow of the cold drink, then pulled a face. "I've heard of them. They're a big name, not someone you want to mess with. I hope you weren't being a pest to them like usual."

"No, Tomoyo said I could come back any time I wanted." Sakura opened the leather book again and laid it flat on her lap, stroking her fingers over the glossy photo paper. In this picture, Nadesiko stood half-turned towards the camera with one hand clutching a hat to her head, laughing as though the wind had been foiled in its prank of stealing her hat away. She was wearing a long, elegant dress of peach and pale pink, with an ivory vest and overskirt falling in a satiny sheen along the flanks. Peach-colored posies marched up the scalloped lace edges of the surcoat, with matching ribbons crossing the chest and trailing in neat bows from the shoulders. "I will, too. I think I'd like to be friends with her."

Touya made a disagreeing noise, and Sakura looked up at him in surprise. "Why not? She's really nice."

"I suppose she could be," Touya said, misgivings evident in his tone. "Just be careful, all right? A teenage girl in a huge wealthy, powerful family like that, the chances are good she's a spoiled brat used to getting everything she wants."

"She's not!" Sakura said indignantly. "You haven't even met her! Don't say things like that about her!"

"All right, all right," Touya shrugged away his criticism. "If you want to visit I can't stop you. Just don't make a pest of yourself. You know they say guests are like fish, they start to stink after a few days." He paused and waved a hand dramatically under his nose. "In fact I think it might already be too late for that. Whew! What'd you do, roll in a ditch on the way home?"

"I did not!" Infuriated, Sakura snapped the book shut and marched over to the kitchenette; Touya gave way before her, grinning widely.

"Make sure to eat something," he said, easily fending off her half-hearted punches. "I'm going to my room to study for a few hours. There was a new workbook in the mail today." He waved a thick manila envelope that Sakura recognized; it was part of the correspondence courses Touya was taking with a nearby part-time high school. It wasn't as prestigious as Tomoeda, of course, but it would at least qualify him to apply for some nearby university… except, of course, they couldn't afford for him to go to university. Not while he still had to work to support Sakura.

"Okay," Sakura said quietly, and Touya ruffled her hair affectionately as he squeezed past her out of the kitchen. The door to Touya's room closed quietly, leaving Sakura in the untidy apartment.

She knew Touya was just looking out for her, wary of new people in their lives. Apart from Sakura's school friends they didn't really have many other people; their mother's family had been estranged ever since she had married their dad, and their dad's family didn't even live in this part of Japan. Touya's friends from high school had all graduated and moved on, including Sakura's old girlhood crush Yukito; he still kept faithfully in touch, sending letters and e-mails from university, but they hardly ever got the chance to see him any more except when he came home for the holidays.

With a sigh, Sakura went about dishing up a portion of the rice and bacon for herself, sealing the rest of it away in plastic Tupperware. It was hard to imagine anything more different from Tomoyo's fairy garden that afternoon, a time spent in an enchanted castle. But this was the real world, no doubt about it. Stomach rumbling with guilt pangs more than hunger, Sakura went to have her dinner.

She wondered if Cinderella's sisters had ever felt as glum as she did.

\--------------

"Sakura-chan!" The familiar voice hailed her as she finished the last set of drills, and Sakura cranked her head to the side mid-lunge to see her friends Naoko, Chiharu and Rika standing by the sidelines. Chiharu was waving cheerfully, and Sakura waved briefly and frantically back; but she had to wait until the coach tweeted her whistle to signal the end of the exercise before she could run over to greet them.

During normal gymnastics practice, that never would have been permitted - but this was summer vacation. Most of the clubs kept up some sort of regular practice schedule, partly so that their members didn't fall out of practice and partly to give students something to do during the long empty weeks. But in the lazy, sticky heat of Tomoeda's summer, the frenetic pace of most of the activities relaxed somewhat; most coaches allowed their students to break ranks and chatter with their friends in the shade under their benevolent eye.

Sakura dove for her towel and water bottle sitting in the shade of a rough and knotted plum tree by the edge of the field. Naoko shook her head in amazement. "Sakura-chan, I don't understand how you can stand it," she exclaimed. "How can you work so hard in this heat? I think I'd faint!"

"Sometimes I wish I'd chosen a nice indoors club like you guys," Sakura said ruefully. Rika was part of the student council, Naoko a member of the tiny Poetry and Drama club just started last year; Chiharu's debate team didn't meet during summer break at all, but she came to school anyway to keep her friends company.

"Sakura-chan is very exuberant and full of energy," Rika said, smiling her usual gentle smile. "I think you'd get restless staying indoors for too long!"

Sakura laughed, not entirely at ease with the praise. Naoko and Chiharu had once been on the baton team with her, but as they'd entered middle school they'd drifted towards less energetic activities. Only Sakura had gone on from baton to gymnastics and track. It was true that she was the best female athlete in her grade, one of the best even among the boys; but she always felt uncomfortable when people pointed that out. It wasn't that she was so much stronger than the other girls as that none of them wanted to  _try._ There was an unspoken code of girliness that made it uncool to sweat too hard, and Sakura always wondered where that left her.

"You sound like Tomoyo-chan," she said, changing the topic. "Going on about how energetic I am all the time."

"Who?" several of her friends wanted to know, and Sakura grinned - for real, this time. It was rare that she had a gossip story this interesting to share.

"Tomoyo-chan!" she said happily. "You guys, you guys, I just met her the other day. Remember the old Fujitaka estate? Well, a new family has moved in their after all, and they have a girl just our age!"

"No way!" Chiharu exclaimed, and Rika wanted to know, "Will she be coming to this school?"

"I don't think so," Sakura said, her smile fading into a slight frown. "She didn't recognize the name of this school, and she ought to have if she was starting in September."

"Well, if her family moved into the Fujitaka estate, they must be super rich," Chiharu pointed out. "She probably goes to some fancy private school or has her own home tutors or something."

"You're probably right," Sakura said unhappily. "I didn't think to ask."

"Was she nice?" Rika wanted to know, and Sakura's enthusiasm fired back up.

"Yes, she's  _so_  nice!" Sakura exclaimed. "Guys, guys, you really have to meet her. She's so pretty and elegant - you should see the clothes she wears! It's like - it's like those Lolita fashions, but -"

"Ooh," Naoko said, enraptured. "A goth-loli? In the same grade as us? How daring of her! Does she wear the silver jewelry with the skulls and the black lace with spiderwebs and everything?"

"No, not like that," Sakura said. "I mean, lots of lace, yes, but it's white, not black, and -"

"Does she bleach her hair?" Rika wanted to know. "She can't do that if she's coming to a high school like ours, it's against the rules."

"No, her hair is really black and shiny," Sakura said. "And long. I really wish I knew what shampoo she uses to make it so glossy."

"Maybe she's a vampire," Naoko interrupted, her face taking on its familiar dreamy look as she began manufacturing fantasies again. "Maybe she came to Tomoeda because she's on the run from some vampire hunters and she only comes out on the full moon and -"

"Honestly, Naoko, you're such a dork," Chiharu said in disgust. "Don't start your crazy stories again."

"Anyway, she's not  _like_  that," Sakura said, regaining control of her story again. "What I'm saying is that she doesn't wear black or paint her nails dark or have heavy eye makeup at all. She's not - she's not  _fake_  like the girls you see downtown. Her dresses are all elegant and long, and they sweep the floor, and there are these gorgeous lace cuffs, and long sleeved gloves like - like -"

"Like a fairy princess," Naoko sighed, drifting easily from one fantasy to the next.

"Like a lady out of the Roccoco period?" Rika supplied helpfully. "With a flowered hat and a parasol?"

"Yes!" Sakura said gratefully. Rika could always be counted on to know the classical references that Sakura didn't understand. "Well - she didn't have a parasol. And I didn't say anything about the hat. How'd you know?"

"Because she's standing over there," Rika said, and pointed behind Sakura towards the edge of the field.

"Oh!" Sakura whirled around, and sure enough there were a pair of strangers standing at the edge of the field, just inside the school fence. One was a tall, bulky man Sakura had never seen before - he wore a dark suit and dark sunglasses that covered his eyes and gave him a menacing aura. Next to him, as delicate looking as a china doll, was Tomoyo.

For a moment she was struck by a weird feeling of dissociation. In her beautiful garden, surrounded by the rich gazebo and that magnificent house, Tomoyo had looked right, part of the archaic scenery. To see her plucked from that setting and placed down on the sweltering, grubby, slightly overgrown P.E. grounds of Tomoeda high school was jarring, like seeing a celebrity in the street for the first time out of costume.

Not that Tomoyo was out of costume. She was wearing a different beautiful dress this time, this one a bright pink and white lace confection with a many-tiered skirt, each layer set off by a ruffle of black lace. The skirt was festooned all over with pink bows and trailing ribbons; a matching bow perched on the wide-brimmed floppy hat that shaded her face and the pink, pearl-encrusted parasol that she was carrying over one shoulder. Her free hand - again encased in a long, pale pink glove - held a camcorder up to her eye, pointed in Sakura's direction.

When she saw Sakura looking her way, Tomoyo raised her hand in a cheery wave and called out, her clear sweet voice piercing the air. She hurried across the field towards them, still carrying the camera, and the black-suited bodyguard (because surely he MUST be a bodyguard!) trailed behind.

"Dear Sakura, I'm so glad I caught you!" Tomoyo said happily. "When I heard that you were going to have a practice today, I thought to myself that I absolutely  _must_  take this chance to record you in action. I could never forgive myself if I missed out on one moment of Sakura's glory!"

Sakura blushed hotly. She'd forgotten the way Tomoyo went on about her, and it was a lot more embarrassing in the presence of her friends. "Um," she mumbled. "Guys, this is Tomoyo - Daidouji Tomoyo, my new friend."

"And these must be all of your friends," Tomoyo said, turning her beaming smile on them. "Do please introduce us, I'm simply dying to make all of your acquaintances!"

"Oh, yes," Sakura said, and hurried to introduce everyone. "This is Sasaki Rika, and Yanagisawa Naoko, and Mihara Chiharu. They're my best friends!"

"Nice to meetcha," Chiharu said, and the three of them bobbed in abbreviated curtseys. Sakura could see why; Tomoyo made a stunning first impression. Even as she made the introductions, her gaze was riveted by Tomoyo's dress; it was even more intricate up close, with the panels of pink cloth that appeared plain from a distance on closer inspection to be heavily embroidered with tiny clear glass beads and pink thread in delicate patterns. The layers shifted like heavy satin as she moved, and Sakura found herself wondering how Tomoyo could stand to wear it out in this heat.

Her bodyguard apparently had similar thoughts, because he made an unhappy grunt as his flat shaded gaze swept the open field. "My lady, you shouldn't spend so much time in the sun like this," he said disapprovingly. "We should return to your car."

Sakura glanced upward, a bit surprised by the comment; it was overcast today, though the sun glared down brassily through the layer of clouds with no less heat. She didn't blame the man for being worried about his mistress, though; Tomoyo's pale skin looked like it would burn very easily.

Tomoyo gave a tinkling laugh. "Oh, Kurogane, don't fuss so," she said fondly. "I'll be fine. I'm not made of sugar that will melt in a little bit of heat, you know."

"Lady Tomoyo…" the man rumbled disapprovingly. He took off his sunglasses briefly, the more effectively to frown down on his mistress' head; his eyes were a startling, piercing color of red. "You know better…"

"Oh, very well," Tomoyo said with a sigh. She looked back at the girls from Tomoeda, her violet eyes sparkling vividly. "I'm delighted to meet you all, if only for such a short time," she said, "You are all such charming girls. But, dear Sakura, I wanted to see you more. Won't you come and call on me again?"

"Oh! Yes, of course, if you want me to," Sakura fumbled, and then hesitated. "Actually, I'd… I'd like to ask you something, if you don't mind. That is, I had something I wanted to show you. But I don't have it with me now…" She trailed off. The picture was still back at her home; she hadn't imagined that Tomoyo would come here today, so she hadn't brought it with her. And now she was dressed in her gym clothes, all sweaty and dirty. "Maybe not this afternoon…"

"Perhaps tomorrow, if you don't have practice again?" Tomoyo suggested.

Sakura nodded emphatically. "Sure!"

"Wonderful!" Tomoyo's beaming grin returned, bringing an almost ethereal light to her face. "That will give me enough time to edit this footage that I captured today. I just can't imagine wasting a minute of dear Sakura in action!"

Sakura flushed again, and Rika and Naoko stifled giggles. Tomoyo's grin turned momentarily impish, and then she turned in a fluttering whirl of skirts and ribbons. "Sayonara, then!"

She hurried off as energetically as she'd come, leaving all four of the girls to stare after her. Sakura gave a wistful sigh, the hot afternoon somehow feeling drained and dimmer without her. "Isn't she amazing?" she said.

"She's certainly very elegant," Rika said, sounding impressed. "I've never seen anyone so well-mannered."

"Like a fairy princess," Naoko said dreamily, no doubt off in one of her creations again. "So pretty."

"Really? I thought she was kinda creepy," Chiharu said.

"What? How can you say that?" Sakura looked at Chiharu, shocked and hurt. Chiharu was always plain-spoken, it was one of the things that made her such a great friend, but she couldn't believe her friend would say something like that.

Chiharu scowled, then shrugged, her curly pigtails bouncing. "Well, she kind of is!" she exclaimed. "I mean, you only just met her yesterday, and she came all the way to your school, with a video camera even! And seriously, those clothes, who dresses like that nowadays?"

"Well, I like her," Sakura said defensively. "And I like her clothes. They might be old-fashioned, but they, but she…"

"They suit her," Rika supplied, and Sakura nodded. "As though she were from another time."

"Maybe she's the lost princess Anastasia, who disappeared after the Russian King was killed in the revolution," Naoko suggested.

Chiharu sighed and rolled her eyes. "That was almost a hundred  _years_  ago, Nao-chan," she said. "Anastasia has got to be dead by now."

"Not if she was a vampire," Naoko said stubbornly. "Then she'd be young and beautiful forever."

"She's obviously not a vampire, she was standing out in the open in the middle of the day," Chiharu scorned. "She's just a weird girl with a fetish for fancy clothing. But I won't say anything when she's around," Chiharu added, turning to Sakura.

"Well… all right," Sakura said grudgingly. "But I still think you're wrong about her. She's wonderful."

"She's just a little eccentric," Rika said. "A lot of rich people are. But it's good for you, Sakura-chan, that she's taken a liking to you. She'll probably buy you lots of expensive presents, and you can go over to her fancy house all the time."

"I'm not doing it for that!" Sakura said indignantly, and her friends all smiled. "I wouldn't do something like that!"

"Of course  _you_  wouldn't, Sakura-chan," Naoko said. "A tomboy like you wouldn't care about girly frills and fancy things. All we're saying is, you should make the most of your good luck."

Sakura frowned. Always the same… even her friends, the ones who knew her best, always put her in that same box. Just because her clothes were plain, because Touya dressed her in his old boys' hand-me-downs, because she had to spend her time exploring outside instead of playing video games like the other girls, people just assumed…

"I will," she said aloud, thinking of Tomoyo's beautiful house, the picture she had stashed away under her pillow like a secret. "Don't worry."

\--------------

The next day was a Saturday, but Sakura woke up early in the morning despite that, too excited by the thought of the meeting later to sleep. She hurried out of bed and then spent nearly half an hour agonizing over what to wear - aside from her school uniform, all of her clothes were casual streetwear, and she didn't want to show up at Tomoyo's lovely house in ripped jeans and a stained t-shirt (even if that WAS what she'd worn the last time.) She finally settled on the nicest clothes she had - a pair of dark-blue jeans and a shirt with slightly ruffled sleeves and silver stars on it, and at least she would be taking off her grubby sneakers at the door.

By the time she was up, dressed, and washed, Touya had peeled himself out of bed and was slurping down udon noodles at the table. "Will you look at that, the bear came out of its cave early," he said sarcastically. "What's got you up at this hour, squirt?"

She glared at him, then went over to the kitchen to dig out some crackers to eat. "I'm going over to Tomoyo's," she said. "She asked me to come over today."

"Really? This early?" Touya sounded surprised. "Most people her age like to sleep in till noon at least. Are you sure she's even awake yet?"

"I... oh..." Sakura's steps towards the front door faltered as she realized Touya was right. Tomoyo hadn't specified a time, and Sakura didn't have her phone number to call her and check. She chewed her lip as she looked at the door a moment. "You think I should wait and go over later?"

"I would," Touya said, then tipped his head back to gulp down the broth. He set the bowl down and wiped his mouth. "The only people who come to your door before noon are milkmen, mailmen, and Jehovah's Witnesses. And you wouldn't want to make yourself any more obnoxious than you already are."

Sakura huffed at him, but gave up on the idea of rushing over to Tomoyo's house at the earliest possible moment. In an effort to keep herself distracted, Sakura threw herself into the list of chores that had piled up while Sakura had been busy at gymnastics practice. That meant, unfortunately, that Sakura was elbow-deep in suds with a handkerchief over her hair when the doorbell rang.

Sakura hurriedly rinsed her hands and went over to the door, frowning; who would be at their door on a Saturday? The NHK representatives kept trying to collect fees despite repeatedly being shown that they had no TV in the house, but they usually only showed up on weekdays... Sakura stood on her tiptoes to look out the spyhole, and found herself faced with a tall, unfamiliar man in a black and white suit. His hair was a startling blond color and his eyes were blue; true blond, not the brassy orange that most of the college boys dyed it to. Sakura's confusion grew; what was he doing in Tomoeda and what did he want with them? Was he some kind of salesman, or maybe a missionary?

Still, whoever he was, it was rude just to keep him standing on the porch; as he raised his hand to press the buzzer again, Sakura undid the locks on the door and swung it open. The stranger's eyes widened and his smile broadened upon seeing her, and he swept her an eloquent bow.

"Ah, Princess Sakura!" he said, beaming, in nearly flawless Japanese. "My name is Fai Flowright. I've been sent to take you to Miss Daidouji's house for tea this afternoon. Are you ready to go, or shall I wait?"

"Take me?" Sakura blinked in astonishment.

"Yes, your chariot awaits!" The stranger - Fai - straightened up and took a step back, sweeping his arm out behind him. Sakura looked past him across the concrete step to the parking lot; wedged in among the familiar Vespas and Hondas was a long, low, sleek black car. It looked foreign, but more importantly, it looked classy and expensive.

"Who's at the door?" Touya called, and came out of his room adjusting the ties on his work uniform. He caught sight of the stranger in the doorway, and his expression shifted to a scowl. "Who's this?"

"Fai D. Flowright, at your service," the blond man said cheerfully, although he did not repeat his extravagant bow. He was dressed in a neat black and white outfit - black trousers and vest over a crisp white shirt, with scarlet buttons and trim around the wrists and cuffs. "I'm here to transport your lovely sister to the Daidouji household. Is there anything you want to bring?" he addressed to Sakura.

"Oh - just a moment - " Sakura hurriedly stripped off the rubber gloves and the handkerchief from her head, stashing them under the sink. She darted back into her room to fetch the photo album from where it had been stashed under her pillow, hugging it tight to her chest for a moment before she slipped it into a messenger bag. When she went out into the main room again, Touya and the man Fai seemed to be in the middle of an argument.

" - don't want just any strange man walking in off the street and expecting to take my sister anywhere," Touya was saying angrily, almost nose-to-nose with the stranger - or at least he would have been, if he hadn't come up barely to the man's shoulder. Touya was fairly tall by Japanese standards, and not used to being towered over; it was clear he didn't like it. Fai, on the other hand, was just smiling in a friendly way, obviously unfazed by the younger man's hostility.

"Brother!" Sakura huffed in annoyance. "You don't need to be so mean! Tomoyo is being really nice to send someone over to pick me up."

"That's assuming he even works for the Daidoujis at all, and isn't just some weird pervert trying to kidnap you!" Touya snapped. "He could be a Russian pimp, for all you know! How do we know you are who you say you are?"

"I fully understand, sir," the blond man said, and reached into a pocket to pull out a slender leather card-case. He flipped it open and handed it over to Touya, who snatched it out of his hand and glared at it. "If you like, I can show you my gaijin card and work permit, as well," he added cheerfully, and Touya transferred the glare to him.

Sakura pushed herself between the two men, and pulled the leather case out of Touya's hand to look at it herself; it contained a neat ID badge with a glittering embedded chip, and the Daidouji family name and what she assumed to be their crest printed across the background. Fai's face beamed out at her from the badge, along with his name in both romaji and kana. "See?" she said.

"Anyone can fake a badge," Touya started to argue, but Sakura had had enough.

"Jeez, stop being so paranoid!" Sakura rolled her eyes. "I'm  _going_  to see my friend, and you can't stop me. I'll be back later, okay?"

"All right," Touya said grudgingly. "Call the restaurant if you have any problems. Or when you leave, I'll walk you home. The earlier the better."

"You can't leave your job in the middle of a shift just to walk me home!" Touya had always been protective, but this was just getting annoying. She grabbed her messenger bag and started out the door; Fai, smiling disarmingly, followed behind her. "I'll see you  _tonight_ , Brother."

Her confidence waned as Fai held open the back door of the car for her to climb in, like a taxi driver. The interior of the back seat was lined with a heavy plush purple velvet, the seats a dark rich leather. It smelled dusty and warm, and it took her a little while to find the seatbelts in the dark interior. Fai got in the driver's seat and the car pulled away smoothly, and for a moment Sakura was struck by a dizzying panic. She hadn't ridden inside a car for years; when she wasn't walking to school, she took a train or a bus. In this closed-in cabin she could hardly see the road around her.

Fai quickly distracted her, however, by talking easily and cheerfully over his shoulder as he drove. Her initial impression of him as a friendly, outgoing man was soon confirmed; and as they chatted he skillfully drew her out and made her feel comfortable. The car spun smoothly through a dozen tiny side roads that Sakura only knew in passing, and before she knew it they were pulling down the long, flower-lined driveway of the Fujitaka - now the Daidouji - estate.

Unlike the last time when she had come up from behind the property through the gardens, this time she was approaching the mansion from the main entrance; for a moment she was dazzled by the sheer grandeur of the façade. They passed through a wrought iron gate which opened by remote-control and closed after them, and pulled up to a large covered porch set with glimmering tiles, almost like a hotel. Sakura got out of the back of the car and stared up at the four rearing stories of white siding, its many windows glinting in the sun, before she heard Fai chuckle behind her.

"It's quite a lot to take in, isn't it?" he said sympathetically, and Sakura gulped and nodded. Fai laughed, a warm infectious humor. "Don't worry, all the staff is expecting you. Miss Daidouji was quite looking forward to this date and drove everyone to distraction making sure every detail was right.

"A date?" Sakura said, flustered. "Oh, it's not -"

"A figure of speech," Fai reassured her. "Don't worry, you needn't be shy."

Unfortunately, that just served to make her more shy; when Fai turned back to the car to drive it away to some hidden garage, Sakura almost ran after him. But she clutched her hands around the hard outline of the photo album in her bag, took a deep breath, and walked forward into the house.

The front hallway was more than grand, a glass-fronted vault that went all the way up to the roofs and let light pour in to fill the space below. The decorations were neat and elegant but not sterile, warm lighting conspiring to make the scattering of chairs and benches set around low tables look inviting. Potted plants rose out of urns or spilled over windowsills, tending heavily towards lacy-looking ferns. A rich pattern of tiles - colorful with brown, gold, and white accented with bright blue - marched away into branching hallways in every direction, and wide curving staircases lined two of the walls.

A pattering of footsteps broke her awed inspection, and Sakura turned to see Tomoyo herself hurrying down one of the stairs. "You came! Oh, you came!" the teenager said, slightly out of breath and smiling fit to burst. "How lovely! Oh, do come with me!"

Even indoors, Tomoyo still wore a wide-brimmed flowered hat and long gloves, but her dress today was very different from the previous days - although no less striking. Instead of light, delicate pastels she wore a gown of deep, vivid purple that seemed to match her eyes, and the ruffles of lace that encircled her upper arms, wrists, neck and hem were black. An elegant pattern of gold thread glinted from the violet folds, the fabric itself seeming almost alive, and a brooch of dark purple roses at her throat matched the broad ribbon encircling her hat.

"There is so much to do," Tomoyo cried, grabbing Sakura's hands between her own. Tomoyo's silk-gloved hands were cool to the touch, and she dragged Sakura behind her towards the staircase with a breathless enthusiasm.

Another succession of incredibly beautiful, luxurious hallways went by in a blur, as Tomoyo dragged her friend down one of the wings on the second floor where they fetched up in a large playroom lined with mirrors and chests. Tomoyo released Sakura to sit on a padded bench while she rushed about, pulling clothes on hangars from standing wardrobes and walk-in closets.

"Ever since we spoke yesterday I simply haven't been able to get you out of my mind," Tomoyo was saying, happily sorting through a pile of spangle-shot skirts and scarves. "Your coloring is so vivid - so flushed and healthy - so marvelous. So many of the clothes I've bought but simply could never wear because my complexion doesn't suit them, at last I'll have a chance to see what they would look like on such a gorgeous model!"

She spun around in a swirl of lace petticoats, and before Sakura knew it a heavy fabric headband had been placed on her head; she raised her hand to explore it and her fingers brushed against a profusion of feathers and beads. Tomoyo was holding up different blouses, still on their hangars, against her. "You're a summer, of course, so I think we'll start with these greens and pinks - breezy, light scarves would suit you well, I think, especially when you're in motion…"

"Um, Tomoyo -" Sakura started, reaching up to grab at the hangar as the fabric slithered down her front. "Um, I know it's a little soon, but there was something I wanted to ask you…"

Tomoyo stopped mid-motion, her head cocked to the side and her arms full of lace. "Yes?" she said invitingly.

"Well, I thought because you knew so much about clothes, maybe you could tell me…" Sakura fumbled for her messenger bag, and drew out the photo album within. Tomoyo's gaze sharpened on the worn leather-bound book, and she set her handfuls of fabric carefully aside before she sat down next to Sakura on the padded bench.

"My mother was a model, you see," Sakura explained as she opened the book to the glossy photo spreads. "My dad - used to get all of her pictures, before they went to print, and I still have them."

Tomoyo looked up from the page to her. "When did you lose your mother?" she asked gently.

"Oh - it was a long time ago," Sakura said, and she wouldn't have thought that such an old loss could still make her feel such a pang of sadness. "When I was still just a little girl. I don't really remember her that well, that's why my dad gathered all the pictures."

"Hmm. So she never really got the chance to teach you how to make yourself a beauty." Tomoyo ran one finger carefully down the edge of the book. "You look very much like her, you know."

Sakura flushed. "Oh, no, I couldn't!" she said. "She was a model, and she was - beautiful! Me, I'm just gangly, and - and plain," she finished sadly. "I don't look like her at all."

"Perhaps not yet," Tomoyo said. "A rosebud which has not yet flowered may appear plain, but the rose itself is beautiful. Give yourself ten years to fully bloom, and your beauty will rival even hers."

"Y-you really think so?" Sakura's face felt hot.

A small, mysterious smile appeared on Tomoyo's face briefly. "Trust me," she said.

"But - anyway, that's not what I wanted to ask you," Sakura said in a rush. She turned the pages of the book on her lap, smoothing the fold out carefully when she came to the one of Nadesiko in the pink and peach-colored dress and turning it so that Tomoyo could see it. "I wanted… well, because you seem to know so much about clothes, and you said… something about designing clothes for me. I was wondering if you would be willing to make me a dress that looks like my mother's."

The moment hovered breathless in the air as Tomoyo studied the picture, her manic humor draining away to a more thoughtful serenity. A few times she tilted the page to better catch the light, or touched the paper with a soft finger as though trying to reach into the frame itself. At least, she looked up at Sakura and spoke.

"This dress must have been quite an accomplishment," she said. "Custom-fit for the model. The borders look like they're composed of ordinary seed pearls, which are not normally lustrous, so I suspect the shine was airbrushed in; but the fabric itself looks like a satin polymer blend which is quite hard to come by. The skirt embroidery is asymmetrical, suggesting a landscape rather than a regular pattern, which means it must have been added on after the skirt was composed rather than printed in the factory. To say nothing of the cross-stitching technique and the special reversed boning of the corset. It is nothing less than a work of art."

"So..." Sakura said hesitantly. "So you don't think you could make a dress like that?"

Tomoyo was silent for a moment more, studying the picture, and then she closed the book with a firm snap and held it briefly on her lap. Her eyes rose up to meet Sakura's, the violet color astonishingly vivid. "I could make this dress," she asserted. "I could even adapt it for you, not for your mother. But it would take some time. I would need to specially order the materials, and many of the parts would have to be hand-sewn. A commission of this magnitude would normally run on the order of hundreds of thousands of yen."

Sakura's heart sank. Even the fancy clothes she longed after in the department stores were too much for her; how could she ever hope to afford something as unique and valuable as that? "I don't have that kind of money," she mumbled, looking down.

Much to her surprise, Tomoyo reached out and put a hand under her chin, tilting her face up. The white silk glove caressed her skin, brushing under her jaw for a moment before withdrawing. "I don't need more money," Tomoyo said, her voice warm with faint amusement. "But there is something else I want, dear Sakura, something only you can provide for me."

"Oh, what?" Sakura's heart began to beat faster, and she wasn't sure if it was just sudden hope. Tomoyo's eyes were so very, very bright.

"You," Tomoyo said, then smiled. "Your presence, of course. I would very much like to have you as my companion, Sakura."

"Your... companion?" Sakura's eyes widened. "What does that mean?"

"It can mean any number of things, most of which you don't need to worry about," Tomoyo assured her. "For now, it just means that I want you by my side, dear Sakura. It means that when I call you, you come. I have everything I need, except for comfort and companionship. I would dearly like to have you by my side, to talk, and play games, and amuse me through the long empty days."

That didn't sound like any problem at all. That was what friends did for each other, wasn't it? If all Tomoyo wanted was company, then Sakura would be more than happy to be her friend. "Okay," she said. "I can do that."

"Are you certain?" Tomoyo's eyes seemed to bore into her, like a searing touch on her skin. "You agree to come to my side whenever I call, to stay by my side for as long as I wish? To be bound by the terms of the compact until I or a higher power release you?"

The words had an odd, almost poetic quality to them that confused Sakura a bit. "Higher power?" she said unsurely. "I don't get it."

A brief smile sped across Tomoyo's face and vanished. "Well, it's the traditional wording," she explained. "My staff always tells me I'm too old-fashioned sometimes. But do you agree?"

For a moment Sakura hesitated. Just a moment, though, before the image of her mother's beautiful dress danced before her eyes, and the temptation overcame her brief doubt. "Yes," she said, making her voice as firm as she could. "I agree."

It was the right answer, because as soon as she said it Tomoyo's face dissolved into a smile, and she bounced to her feet as she squealed in delight. Sakura followed behind her as Tomoyo led the way off across the hall, talking excitedly about all the fun they would have together, and within minutes she'd forgotten that she'd ever had any doubt at all.


	2. Chapter 2

When school started that September, Rika didn't come back to class with them. She'd received an unexpected scholarship for a much better school, the CLAMP Academy in Tokyo, and wouldn't be returning to Tomoeda. Sakura was happy for her, of course - at last, Rika would get to go to a school she really deserved - but her desk at school felt keenly empty.

* * *

(She'd come home that day to meet her brother's scowling face. "That makes five times I've called that house, asking to speak with Mr. and Mrs. Daidouji, and five times I've been given the runaround!" he said angrily.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Brother, I'm not  _six!"_  she had yelled. "I don't need you to coordinate play-dates with my friends' parents!"

"This isn't about that!" He'd slammed the phone back in the cradle, and turned his glare on her. "As your guardian I still have a right and a responsibility to keep in touch with  _her_ guardians. But I can't even get anyone to tell me where her parents are, or when they'll be back! Have you ever even seen them? Has  _she_  ever even  _talked_  about them?")

* * *

The last weekend of summer break found Sakura, instead of doing her summer assignments, belly-down on the plush carpet of Tomoyo's sitting room. Tomoyo had a new kitten, and she'd invited Sakura over to play with it while she worked on the dress.

The kitten was so young that it was still wobbly and unsure on its legs, and its fur stuck out in every direction like a surprised dandelion. The effect was compounded by the faint darker marks in the pale fur surrounding the nose and eyes, giving the wide blue eyes an expression of perpetual astonishment. Indeed, the world seemed like a fresh and novel place to this kitten, and she'd spent over an hour chasing a fluffy wand-toy dragged by Sakura across the carpet with no sign of tiring or even losing interest.

In the past weeks she'd spent enough time in Tomoyo's home to become familiar with the layout; even though the 'playroom' they currently occupied had more square footage than her entire apartment with Touya, she felt almost at home here. Her friend sat nearby on a heavy low armchair, thick with plush padding, with yards of cloth draped over her lap as her needle wove in and out with a steady rhythm. The peach-colored dress was slowly starting to take on a shape that Sakura would actually identify as a dress, after spending weeks as a disorganized scatter of tape and paper and bolts and ribbons. It wasn't complete yet, but Sakura could already tell it was going to be beautiful.

Tomoyo herself was no less beautiful; although she'd disclaimed that she "couldn't wear green," her dress today was a loose openwork knit of deep pine green over cream-colored silk. The dress itself was relatively plain, but the high collar was clasped at the front of the throat with a marvelous brooch; gold set with rubies and yellow sapphires formed the shape of a peacock, from which hung rows of pearl and emerald pendants making up the feathers of the peacock's tail, which swung slightly when she moved. Though she wore a loose, lacy crown of ruffles set on a wide headband, she had dispensed with the usual elegant wide-brimmed hat, and the long silk gloves had been set aside as her slender white fingers drove the needle in and out.

As all her attention was fixed on her work, Sakura felt safe to pause for a moment in her play and give Tomoyo a low sideways glance. She just looked so beautiful and elegant, sitting upright and poised like a portrait against the dark frame of the chair and the wooden paneling behind her. It made an odd mix of emotions flutter in Sakura's chest and mix in her throats; happiness to be here with her friend, as well as a certain envious sadness that she could never be so beautiful, and a strange yearning that she could not explain.

And yet, despite her elegant prettiness, Tomoyo didn't look quite well. She'd been slim before, but she seemed to have lost even more weight since Sakura had seen her last; surely it couldn't be healthy? The exquisite lines of her bones pressed through her skin, which had always been pale but now took on an almost translucent look. Her violet eyes sparkled with something that might have been a fever. Although she'd greeted Sakura at the door today, it was without the almost manic energy that Tomoyo had exhibited on their first few meetings.

She looked almost unearthly, as though she had been touched by some uncaring angel to draw her gradually away from this world. Sakura kept stealing glances at her, growing more and more concerned, until finally she couldn't help herself and blurted out; "Tomoyo, is something wrong? Are you sick?"

Tomoyo smiled at her, and the smile was no less luminescent for the growing paleness of her lips. "It's kind of you to ask, dear Sakura. But no, I am not sick. I am fine."

"You don't look fine," Sakura objected. "Are you sure you're not sick? Have you seen a doctor?" Someone like Tomoyo probably even had private doctors of her own, rather than having to wait for hours in the chilly hospital lobbies at Tomoeda General.

"There's no need for a doctor; I know perfectly well what the problem is," Tomoyo said calmly. "It is an affliction that comes and goes; there's no medicine that will cure it. My staff and I have it under control, do not concern yourself."

Sakura looked up, her eyes widening. "Of course I'm concerned! I'm your friend!" she exclaimed. "But Tomoyo, isn't there anything I can do to help?"

Tomoyo's smile - and her eyes - softened. "That means more to me than I can say," she said sincerely. "Sakura, you are the best medicine of all."

Sakura scowled, slightly discontented. She supposed Tomoyo was right; it wasn't like Sakura was any kind of doctor, but the answer seemed kind of condescending when she really was worried for her friend.

"I do appreciate you coming over to play with Opal," Tomoyo added, returning to her sewing. "As you see, she has an insatiable appetite for adventure."

"Oh, it's no problem!" Sakura said, quickly looking back down at the kitten on the floor. Finally coming to the end of her seemingly boundless energy, the kitten was in the middle of dropping off to sleep even with her paw extended to swipe the toy. "She's so cute! I'm just so happy to get to see her and play with her, I should be the one thanking you!"

Tomoyo smiled, making a small 'hmm' sound. "She may be cute, but she is quite a handful," she said. "She's been keeping the entire floor awake at night with her meowing."

If Tomoyo hadn't been able to sleep lately, maybe that was why she looked so tired and pale. "That's too bad," Sakura exclaimed with sympathy. "Is it because she wants to play in the middle of the night?"

"Mmm, partly that," Tomoyo answered. "But I think she hasn't realized yet that her mother and littermates are gone forever. She keeps crying for them in the middle of the night. "

"So she's lonely?" Sakura said, reaching out to stroke the tiny kitten's soft fur. "Poor thing."

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Tomoyo said. Her voice was kind and compassionate, but also firm. "It's hard for one so young to be separated from her mother and siblings, transported to a strange place so different from the life she used to know. But all young ones have to leave the nest eventually; I'm sure with a little time and patience, kindness and understanding, she'll come to be happy here."

"Oh, she will be, she must be!" Sakura said fervently. "This is such a big house, with so many people and toys to play with! She'll never have to be hungry or afraid. I can't imagine any pet so lucky as to be adopted by you, Tomoyo-chan!" She had to bite her lip before anything more could escape them; she could hardly believe what she'd already said. Tomoyo would laugh at her, if she knew that Sakura was jealous of a  _cat._

"No, she won't lack for anything. I'll see to that." Tomoyo paused in her sewing and looked up at Sakura, then gave her a sweet and gentle smile as she laid the garments carefully aside.

Tomoyo carefully gathered her skirts and stood up, and the unaccustomed effort in the simple movement made Sakura frown in worry. Tomoyo must be a lot more tired than she let on, more so than just being woken up by a loud kitten should account for. Was she working so hard on the dress that she wasn't sleeping well? Sakura felt guilty at the thought, and as she looked back down at the adorably sleepy kitten her eyes pricked. Couldn't she do anything right?

A gentle hand on her hair startled her into looking up; Tomoyo had knelt on the carpet beside her, stroking Sakura's hair as delicately as the kitten's fur. "She has her new forever home here, even if she doesn't know it yet," Tomoyo said. "I will take care of her, provide her with anything she needs and wants in exchange for the company and companionship she blesses me with, for all the years of her life."

* * *

_…crowded in a tiny dressing room, barely more than a closet; no windows, only one overhead light shining down hot and bright on her. "I must take my measurements, dear Sakura," Tomoyo's voice murmurs._

_…the long marked tape slithering over her legs, startlingly ticklish, as those fingers slide cool as water over her belly, her hips, her chest; just barely brushes over her nipples, and Sakura starts and swallows and holds her breath._

_"Breathe in," Tomoyo urges her, holding the tape closed around her breasts. "So that I know how much give the bodice must have…"_

_…and she breathes in, and holds it ticklish in her throat, while Tomoyo's hands press carefully around her ribcage; and Tomoyo has captured even her breath…_

* * *

A week later Sakura received a call from Naoko, wavering between excited burbling and upset wailing almost too rapidly for Sakura to follow. It seemed that her father had been offered a golden new opportunity in a new position, one that paid twice as much as his current job - but the company was in Okayama, so they would have to move away. Sakura managed to stutter out her congratulations and her condolences, all through a throat that seemed too thick to swallow.

* * *

("I've been doing some investigating," Touya told her bluntly, his hand coming down heavily on a stack of printouts with the letterhead of the local Internet café. "There's no birth record of any child named Tomoyo Daidouji in the last twenty years - in fact, there's been no female children registered to the Daidouji family for at least sixty years!"

" _Niisan!"_  Sakura had been honestly shocked by his rudeness. "That's none of your business! Who asked you to go poking around like some dirty private detective, anyway?"

"It's my business because  _you're_  my business," Touya told her impatiently. "How do you know she's not lying to you about who her family is?"

"I don't  _believe_  you!" Sakura stamped her foot in fury, snatching the stack of papers out of his hands. "I don't care where she was born, because it doesn't matter to me if she's half-Japanese or full Japanese or if she was born out of the country or what. She's my friend and I care about her! Now you leave her alone, or else!")

* * *

"I still can't believe his nerve," Sakura said, still fuming about it hours later. "I hate the way he just dismisses everything I say like I don't know anything. Like  _he_  knows better than  _me_  who's a good person and a true friend or not!"

"He's just worried about you," Tomoyo replied calmly. The two of them were walking side-by-side in the shaded garden, as the sun slanted lower in the sky. Sakura had seen the gardens before, both from the outside and from the inside where the busy green growth pressed against the crystal glass of the windows, but the rich honey color of the late-afternoon sunlight set the flowerbeds and autumn colors ablaze with reflected glory. "I can understand his concern. You are very precious to him. If you were mine, I would worry just as much."

"I know he worries," Sakura huffed, feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed and warmed and ashamed all at once. "But, gah, he sometimes acts like I'm still in diapers! I just… it's stifling, like he wants to stuff me back in a cradle! I couldn't stand to stay in that apartment after that, not for one more minute."

Tomoyo turned to face her; the scalloped edge of her bonnet caught the red-golden sunlight and made it glow in a halo around her face, cast in uncertain shadow in the foreground. "You are always welcome here, Sakura," she declared. "If you need to stay the night, I have a guest room all ready for you; the maids just put fresh linens in this morning."

"I… thanks, but I really shouldn't," Sakura said, guilt twisting her chest as her anger faded further. "He'll be really mad if I stay out all night. He's working a late shift tonight, so if I go home after he leaves I can be in bed by the time he gets back."

Tomoyo nodded, although she looked faintly disappointed. "Well, you can remain as long as you like, anyway," she declared. "You must stay for dinner, at least. I will have Fai call for some take-out, doesn't that sound nice?"

"Um, sure, I guess," Sakura said, somewhat flustered. She still didn't understand why Tomoyo insisted on trying to feed her specially, instead of just eating together. At least 'take-out' sounded like a better plan than the night she'd come over to Tomoyo's for dinner and been faced with a seven-course feast - including three whole roasted turkeys, and one course consisting entirely of potato chips. Chiharu was right, rich people  _were_ weird.

But no matter how eccentric Tomoyo became, Sakura felt nothing but fondness for her. Even that time last week when she'd dressed Sakura in an outlandish outfit of pink and white spandex - in checked diamonds, no less, and a headband with golden wings! - and asked her to demonstrate her old baton routine on the mansion's lawn while Tomoyo filmed the whole thing. It had been embarrassing, especially as many of the servants had turned out to applaud and cheer, but it had been fun all the same.

Sakura had tried to get Tomoyo to come play as well - Tomoyo had such exquisite delicacy and grace, Sakura had no doubt she could perform at least the basic moves of baton - but Tomoyo had begged off, claiming she felt too tired. Indeed, the dark-haired girl still did not seem to be sleeping well, her face pale and wan and her movement stiff and slow. As the dress sped towards completion, Tomoyo seemed equally drained of life and vigor. She'd only had a glimpse of the dress - now standing on a dressmaker's dummy, poised like a silent dancer in the workroom - before Tomoyo had shooed her out and turned off the lights behind her, saying something about how it was unlucky for the groom to see the bride's dress before the wedding.

The friendly blond valet, Fai Flowright, had been one of those who'd turned out to watch and cheer her on. Sakura had encountered him a few more times around the mansion, always with a smile and a friendly word, and he always insisted on driving her home if she stayed after dark - which was more and more often these days as the autumn days slowly shortened. He also seemed immensely fond of Tomoyo herself, which warmed Sakura in perfect sympathy. Indeed, most of the maids and servants (including those frightening bodyguards who lurked about in dark glasses) displayed great affection and deep reverence for their tiny mistress, treating her not just as an employer but as a princess.

"About that valet," Sakura said slowly. "Fai, I mean…"

"One of my favorite manservants," Tomoyo smiled, her voice warm. "He was quite a find, and I was lucky to be able to lure him to my service. Fortunately I was able to offer some enticements that his former employer was not."

That didn't make much sense to Sakura, but she didn't worry it; Tomoyo was always saying odd things like that. It just came of being raised in a position where your family had enough money to buy anything - or anyone - they wanted, she supposed. "But, um, I was just wondering, where did he come from? He's not Japanese, surely, not with a name like that. And his coloring. Did he move to Japan before you met him, or…?"

"Oh, no," Tomoyo said. "He moved back to Japan with me, of course. I met him on his family's estate in Scandanavia, and he choose to move on with me when I did. We only returned to Japan the winter before last, and moved here from Nagoya at the beginning of the summer."

"You've been to Scandanavia?" Sakura blurted out incredulously. "I mean… Wow! That's so far away! I've never even been out of the country."

Tomoyo gave a silvery laugh. "I've been to many countries, as a matter of fact," she said. "In fact many of the staff here are like Fai, emigrants from other countries I have passed through in my journey. My family travels quite a bit," she added, in the face of Sakura's stunned astonishment.

"I guess so," Sakura said, although she was a bit preoccupied. Their gentle perambulations had stopped them before one of the rosebushes; a thicket well over Sakura's height, although neatly trimmed and sculpted enough not to appear wild or untidy. Some half-open roses hung down to the thicket's hem, at the height of Sakura's own waist, and she reached out to idly fiddle with one of them. "But then, does that mean… I mean… no offense, Tomoyo, and I don't want to be insensitive, but…"

"Say whatever is on your mind," Tomoyo encouraged her. "There is no way that you could ever offend me, dear Sakura."

"Were you  _born_  here?" Sakura blurted out, and then stammered to try to explain herself. "I just mean, it sounds like your parents are really, really men of the world - well, men and women of the world - and you've been to all those different countries just in your lifetime! And I just wondered - well, Daidouji is a Japanese name, obviously, but -"

"It's all right," Tomoyo said reassuringly. Indeed, there was a faint amused smile on her lips, and she didn't seem the least bit offended. Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. "To answer your question, yes, I was born in Japan; but we moved away years ago, while I was still young. My mother travels quite a bit as a matron of high society; even now she is away on a business trip in Bombay, looking after the Daidouji interests, while I retire here."

"Your mother?" Sakura tried to figure out if Tomoyo meant to imply that her mother wasn't Japanese, and if her father had married a foreigner for some business partnership. But if they were away on business trips, that would certainly explain why Sakura had never seen Tomoyo's parents. "And, uh - what about your dad?"

The smile dropped away from Tomoyo's voice, leaving it briefly devoid of expression. In that moment she looked almost frightening, like a doll, hard and smooth and ageless and without pity. "It would please me if you would never speak of my father again, Sakura. Ever."

"Oh," Sakura was taken aback, shaken and a little frightened by the cold vehemence of Tomoyo's voice. She looked down, trying to hide the quivers in her arms and hands. "S-sorry. Sorry."

"It's all right." Softness crept back into Tomoyo's face and voice, although her violet eyes remained dark and deep. "There was no way you could have known, and I don't blame you for your innocent curiosity. Indeed, it's one of the things I like best about you, Sakura."

"I didn't mean to upset you," Sakura said, blinking back tears and trying to swallow the choking sound out of her voice. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not upset," Tomoyo said, and then sighed. She reached out and plucked one of the roses, an orange-pink blossom just unraveling to show its pale center. It snapped easily at the base of the stem, and she reached out to press it into Sakura's hands. "Dear Sakura, it troubles me to see you distressed. You should always wear a smile, for that is what makes you the most beautiful."

Sakura was distracted, though, as the implications of Tomoyo's story began to weigh in on her. If Tomoyo's family traveled all the time, enough that Tomoyo had been around the world twice even at such a young age, then did that mean - "Wait, do you mean you're not going to be staying here forever?" Sakura asked, her voice slightly edged with panic. "Does that mean you're going to leave? Leave me?"

Tomoyo blinked, in that moment looking as nonplussed as Sakura had ever seen her. "Why… yes, I suppose so. It was never my intention to settle in Tomoeda permanently. Eventually, I will be moving on…"

"Don't go!" Sakura's hands spasmed around the stem of the rose, ignoring the way the thorns cut into her flesh. "Please, please, don't leave! We've only just met, and I - you're one of my best friends! There's still so much for us to talk about, and do together, and, and, I just don't know what I'll do if you go away…" Terror and despair seemed to rush up and cover her like a wave of dark water, at the thought of all the light that would leave her life without Tomoyo there…

"Oh, no!" In a flash, Tomoyo's hands were around hers, clasping her hands between them in a position of earnest supplication. Although just who was praying to whom here, Sakura didn't think she knew. "Please, Sakura, don't be so sad. I'm not leaving any time soon. Indeed, it will probably be years from now, and many things could change between now and then. Who knows? Perhaps by the time I am ready to move on… you will wish to come with me."

"Come with you?" Sakura blinked rapidly, the dark tide of misery residing in the wake of this new, implausible idea. Surely Tomoyo must be joking. "But, I've never left Tomoeda, I wouldn't… I… Touya wouldn't want me to…"

"Dear Sakura." In Tomoyo's mouth the endearment sounded loving, almost possessive. "You are so young yet."

With precise dignity Tomoyo lifted Sakura's nerveless, unresisting hands between them, until her lips traced paths of bright fire over Sakura's knuckles and the backs of her hands. Sakura realized that she had squeezed too hard around the thorns of the rose, and blood welled in the thorn punctures on the inside of her fingers.

"All little birds must fly the nest eventually," Tomoyo breathed, her breath raising damp goosebumps over Sakura's skin. "You cannot remain dependant on your brother forever, surely. Why not come with me? I would see that you were well cared for, that you lacked for nothing. And of course, we would never have to be apart…"

Sakura stood there in bemused shock, bright lances flashing up her arms and hands as Tomoyo's eyes closed and her lips parted, covering Sakura's fingers with the rich velvet tough of her lips and tongues. One by one her tongue flicked over them, until at last she lowered Sakura's hands and opened her eyes, a deep light shining in their violet depths. "Wouldn't you like that?" she murmured.

"I, I, I don't know," Sakura said, breaking their gaze and stepping back. She was tingling all over, she couldn't stop trembling, she couldn't  _think._ "I don't know what I'm going to do when - I don't even start high school until next March. And my brother - I can't make any decisions like that yet, I'm too young. I - I just don't know."

"Of course," Tomoyo said quietly. The mask of smooth poise seemed to slip back over her features, the brief flash of heat fading and leaving in its place the gently smiling doll. "You are so very young, Sakura, and you don't need to decide all at once."

She released Sakura's hands and stepped back, and Sakura's hand jerked towards her in a moment of loss and woe before falling back to Sakura's side. Tomoyo raised her hands gracefully to her throat, . "But please do take this with you, as a promise," Tomoyo said, overriding Sakura's indrawn startled objection. "I think it looks lovely on you, Sakura, and I only ever wanted you to look your loveliest. Take it with you, and when you look at, remember that I will never leaving you behind…"

The strand of pearls was cool and smooth against Sakura's neck, but the pendant was heavy and pricked at the skin of her chest like tiny thorns. Sakura raised her hand to her chest, touching the chain, and raised the pendant somewhat blurrily into view. It was fashioned of some brilliant silvery material that flashed reflected gold in the dying sunlight, worked in a pattern of elegant filigree so detailed that Sakura could easily get lost in it; the edges curled delicately back as though they were paper, not metal, and it was their points that had dug into her skin.

The central pendant was a large, square-cut stone of a pale blue color, now tinted by the sunset to a deep violet that glowed like Tomoyo's eyes. It had the heavy weight of a promise indeed, and it struck Sakura so utterly as Tomoyo's style that she didn't think she would ever be able to look at it in a mirror without immediately thinking of her friend. "I, I can't take this," Sakura said unsteadily. "I mean - it's too expensive. I can't keep it."

"You can," Tomoyo told her, and something in her voice made all thoughts of fumbling the silver-chased butterfly clasp open and thrusting it back on her friend fall from her mind. "You will."

She did.

* * *

_The flash goes off like a bolt of lightning, and it makes Sakura blink and flinch despite herself. Warm sparkles of electricity seem to crawl over her arms and shoulders, down her sides and her legs, and she squirms as Tomoyo moves in a half-circle around her._

_"The lighting is just right," Tomoyo says soothingly. "Hold your leg just so… oh yes, that's lovely."_

_Sakura twists uncomfortably; for all that she's almost stiff in the bright pink dress Tomoyo has coaxed her to wear, she is shy in the face of the bright lights and the camera lenses in a way that she hadn't been to undress down to her underwear. "I don't understand why you want to," she says half-complainingly, half-plaintive. "I never look good in pictures."_

_Tomoyo lowers the camera and smiles at her, and the chrome ring of the camera lens echoes it like a second grin; the glass lens staring big and black like a third eye. "Then that was only because they were doing it wrong," she says in a voice like silken honey. "You are beautiful, my dear Sakura. I will always treasure these little mementos of you."_

_The photo shoot goes on and on, long after Sakura thinks she ought to have taken all the pictures possible; but there's still always a new angle, always a new pose, Tomoyo reaching in one cool white hand to lift her chin or smooth her dress or trail along her thigh…_

* * *

Even without the call in the middle of the night, Sakura would have heard the news all around the school today: how a fire had started in the middle of the night in the apartment complex where the Mihara family lived, and raged quickly out of control. Chiharu and her mother and sister had gotten out, but they'd lost everything; with no one left in Tomoeda who could put them up, they were moving back to Chiharu's mother's family in Sendai.

Three classmates gone in under a month, all in such unlikely coincidences - it hardly needed Naoko's daydreaming to start whispered rumors of a curse flying excitedly about the classroom. Sakura sat at her desk, surrounded by the three empty desks that burned like live coals around her, and tried to push her fists against her ears to block it out.

All she had left in the world now was Tomoyo.

Tomoyo, and Touya.

* * *

("I don't want you meeting with that Daidouji girl again, Sakura!" Touya had yelled; and even in the midst of her outrage she still found room to be shocked that he used her name, not any kind of affectionate nickname or insult. "Everything I hear about that family says that they're trouble! Predatory loans, overseas banking, real estate scams, cozy deals with local politicians… Even the story of how they got that house to their name was shady! They're dangerous, and I don't want you mixed up with that family or that creepy girl any more!"

"How  _dare_  you talk about Tomoyo like that?" Sakura had barely been able to see straight; even now the memory of the anger that flooded her system made her shake with rage. "I don't care one bit what people say about her family! Tomoyo isn't any of that, it's not her fault what anyone else does or what nasty things people say. Tomoyo is Tomoyo, and she's my friend!"

"This isn't a discussion, Sakura," Touya said through his teeth, his fingers tightening to white on the edge of the table. "You are not going over to that house again. And that's final!"

"Oh yes, I am!" Sakura retorted. "You're not Dad. You don't get to tell me what to do!"

The name, flung into the argument in the heat of the moment, lay there like a live grenade on the kitchen table. Touya stood up, his face darkening with anger. "I may not be Dad, but I  _am_  your legal guardian," Touya said ominously. "So long as you live in this house and you eat the food my money pays for, you'll  _do as I say!"_

Sakura felt her face go bloodless cold, then furnace hot. "Fine then!" she snapped back, flouncing over to the door. "Maybe I'll just go live with Tomoyo, then.  _She's_  got plenty of rooms in her house, and  _she_  doesn't mind feeding me. She doesn't serve top ramen three nights a week anyway, so she'd do a better job than you anyway!"

She'd rushed out the door before Touya could reply to that, slamming the door shut on his rising shout. Just to be safe, she covered her ears with her hands as she bounded down the stairs two at a time; if she didn't hear his answer to that, then the sooner she could forget she'd ever said it.)

* * *

She didn't cry. But more of her feelings must have shown on her face than she'd realized, because as soon as she arrived at Tomoyo's, the staff - with whom she'd grown increasingly familiar over the past months - looked at her with barely-concealed worry. "Are you okay, Lady Sakura?" Fai asked her with concern, as he keyed open the doors with his badge and stood aside to hold it open for her.

Sakura wondered about Fai, sometimes - what his story was, what his life had been like back in Scandanavia. Had he had a family there? Had he once had a brother that he'd left behind, in order to follow his new employer halfway across the world? Had his family approved, or had he gotten into terrible fights with them when he announced his decision to go? What kind of devotion, what kind of courage would that take?

But Fai was a grown-up, competent and confident and strong; Sakura was not. "I'm fine," Sakura said, and managed a trembling smile. "Thanks."

The concerned-looking maid ushered her in to Tomoyo's bedroom, and Sakura's heart - already seeming a heavy lump in her stomach - dropped even further. Tomoyo looked weaker than ever, sitting in a large chair propped up by fluffy pillows and with a creamy soft wool blanket spread over her lap. As the weeks had passed and Tomoyo's condition had grown worse, Sakura had asked her about it several more times; each time Tomoyo had simply replied that she wasn't sick, and she knew what the problem was, and that she'd be fine, until Sakura finally had given up asking.

In the wake of the last terrible week - all of her friends moving away one by one, Chiharu losing her home in the fire, now even Touya no longer the steady bedrock beneath her feet - the thought that she might lose Tomoyo as well filled her with a suffocating terror. "T-tomoyo?" Sakura asked tremblingly.

Tomoyo opened her eyes and smiled as Sakura entered. "Dear Sakura," she said, her voice faint and tired. She made the effort to sit up a bit straighter when the maid led Sakura in, and tilted her head to the side as she studied Sakura's face. "Is everything all right?"

Everything was  _not_  all right, everything was wrong, and the question almost made Sakura burst into tears. "Oh, Tomoyo," she said, and her voice was almost a wail. The room seemed to waver in her vision, and Sakura stumbled to Tomoyo's side and collapsed by her feet, burying her hands and face in the soft blanket in Tomoyo's lap.

She hadn't meant to burden Tomoyo with her problems, but she couldn't help herself; the whole story came tumbling out. Tomoyo's hands stroked gently through her hair, trailing soft shivery caresses over the top of her head and down to the back of her neck.

"And I know he's just worried about me," Sakura finished up, sniffling hard against the tears that wanted to tumble out with her words. "And I know that he cares. But he just won't  _listen_  to anything I  _say_  and it's so  _frustrating!_  He doesn't care whether I'm happy or not, he doesn't care at all! All he cares about is whether I  _obey_  him or not! He just wants to  _control_  me, and I'm sick of being guilt-tripped into going along with every little thing he says!"

"I'm sure that's not true," Tomoyo said soothingly. "But why should you feel guilty?"

"Because I shouldn't have yelled," Sakura said shamefully.

"I don't mean right now," Tomoyo said. "I mean in general. Why should a child feel guilty for being cared for by their parent?"

Sakura fell silent, calming down a little now that she'd had a chance to vent some of her churning emotions - although she felt no less miserable for it. But at least it was easier to think now. "Because… he's not really my parent, I guess," she said. "He shouldn't  _have_  to take care of me, but after my dad died, there was nobody else who could. He… he could have gone on to college with his friends, and gotten a good career, but because of  _me_  he couldn't.

"And he's going to be stuck with me for four more  _years,_  at least, until I'm old enough that he doesn't have to support me any more, and I'm sick of it already! I know it's my fault that his life was ruined, and I hate it! I didn't  _ask_  him to take care of me!"

"Oh, Sakura," Tomoyo sighed, and then she leaned over and gave Sakura a brief hug. "You shouldn't worry so much about things that are beyond your control."

"Then that's  _everything,"_ Sakura burst out resentfully. "I'm not  _in_  control of  _anything."_

"And that's hard, I know," Tomoyo said. Then she released the hug, and patted Sakura on the top of her head. "Come, I know just the thing to lift your spirits. I finished your dress last night, you see."

"Oh!" Sakura's head came up, startled. "But… already?"

Tomoyo laughed. "It's hardly 'already' when it's taken over a month, is it?" she said, smiling. "I didn't tell you because I wanted it to be a surprise. But I think the time has come."

She took Sakura's hand and urged her to her feet, then rose from her chair and brushed the blanket and pillows aside. Without letting go of Sakura's hand, she led her to a door set in the wall - not out to the main hallway, but to some hidden adjoining chamber off the bedroom. She opened the door and flicked on an overhead light to reveal a walk-in closet - by itself as large as Sakura's bedroom, but cramped and cozy compared to most other rooms in this house.

A set of three joined, lit mirrors waited at the far end of the dressing room; in the center was a dressmaker's mannequin, silently waiting the touch of the light. Draped over the mannequin was the peach-and-rose dress, looking as though it had stepped out of the photograph of Sakura's mother across all the miles and years.

There were a few differences. This dress was shorter than Nadeshiko's had been - of course - and narrower in the bust and hips. The hue was a little more pink, a little less gold, and the posies lining the hems and seams were now changed to roses. The overskirt - a shimmering white, heavy with the weight of its own thread and inviting Sakura's fingers to run down its satiny grain - was subtly embroidered with a twining pattern of the same, and had been gathered up in elegant pleats up from the hem. The embroidered frieze around the hem of the skirt, rather than the rolling country hills that had been the original designer's trademark, now depicted a lush garden instead; climbing vines sent their shimmering tendrils up as high as the dress-wearer's leg.

It was beautiful. So beautiful.

"I…" Sakura hesitated, her throat tight and her heart beating in a funny way. "I don't… I don't know how to put it on."

"Don't worry." Tomoyo turned slightly towards her, smiling a low smile like a banked flame. "I'll help you."

At last when the last lacing had been tied off, and the last clasp done up, Sakura turned to the triple mirror standing under the lights, and looked at herself.

She felt strange, at once a hundred miles away and painfully, heavily present in herself. She swallowed heavily, and saw the bob and flex of her own throat in the mirror above the fall of lace. She took a breath, and saw the stitched bodice rise and fall with it; twitched her shoulders uncertainly, and saw the fabric ripple and flow. Took a small step, and saw the skirt swish and swirl.

Tomoyo had put her in dresses and outfits before, but this was different. Those had already been made, and had felt more like costumes than clothes. This - this had been made for  _her,_  and it hugged every line of her body, clung to her skin, seeming more a  _part_  of her than anything she had ever worn before.

Or perhaps like a part of a  _her_  that she'd never seen before…

The girl in the mirror was almost a stranger to Sakura. Gone was the skinny, grubby teenager who had played in the woods and the ditches for lack of anything better to do; gone was the poor little ragamuffin in her big brother's handmedowns, worn to rags for lack of anything better to wear. In her place was… a lady, a princess, a girl on the verge of a womanhood more full of poise and promise than Sakura had ever dared dream. Even her short, raggedly-chopped hair had been clasped with pink and brown ribbons, cascading forward over her shoulder and down over her back like an elegant waterfall. The ribbons were slightly crinkly, slightly curly, just like her mother's hair had been.

In the mirror was - not her mother, Sakura understood that much, because the girl in the mirror moved and blinked and breathed as she did, not like the still remote picture from the magazine at all. But for the first time in her life, she could see her mother's daughter. No more a little girl, but at last stepping forward to take the part of a woman.

"Now you see," Tomoyo's voice murmured in her ear. Pale, slender arms wrapped in black lace - violet and black against white and pink - circled her chest just under her arms, folding over her breasts. Cool breath misted against her ear. "This is your true self, the self you had always hidden within. What came before was only a chrysalis, like the cocoon that a caterpillar wraps itself in on the way to becoming a butterfly. It is time for you to cast away that empty shell, and be what you were always destined to be."

Sakura's heart jumped into motion, a startled, frenzied rhythm that felt like it would burst from her chest if not for the confining bonds of the dress' tight bodice. She froze like a statue, momentarily unable to breathe, and it was not only the feel of Tomoyo's cool hands drifting over her chest, trailing up her breasts to finger the lace collar of her throat; nor even the cold breath in her ear.

It was because Tomoyo was standing behind her, her body pressed up close against Sakura's back and her lips hovering against Sakura's neck just below her ear;  _but Sakura was alone in the mirror._

"Dear Sakura," Tomoyo breathed against her ear, the familiar endearment suddenly alien amidst this sea of horror. "I have never hungered for any man's blood the way I have for yours, not for years uncounted. Cast off the shell of your previous life and come to me; be my lover and companion, and my chalice, and I shall make you the princess you have ever longed to be. All that you ever wished for, all you desired, shall be made yours, for all the years of your mortal life."

A hard, sharp edge scraped oh-so-litely along the side of Sakura's neck - not hard enough to hurt, but enough to send white bursts of frission across her skin. Sakura jerked her head to the side, neck cricking painfully, as her white-edged eyes slewed sideways. Tomoyo's face was inches from her own, violet eyes half-lidded. She was smiling, as Tomoyo had smiled oh so many times. But while Tomoyo had always before kept her lips tightly closed, now they were parted, flush with exhilaration and desire; and two pearly incisors peeked down from her upper lip, a dainty curve ending in a flint-sharp point.  _No, no… no! It can't be, it can't, it can't!_

"Let go of me!" Sakura screamed, panicking wildly now. "Let me go, let me go!" She threw herself against the heavy weight of Tomoyo's arms, thrashing wildly until she fought her way free.

Sakura stumbled backwards, hands clenched into shaking fists at her side; Tomoyo leaned after her, arms open as if to embrace her again, eyes wide in surprise - or anger. Framed now under the harsh bright lights of the dressing room, her pale skin looked white as bone, not the slightest flush of pink or blue to betray the flow of blood underneath. And though she stood in the full view of the triple mirrors, they reflected only empty space.

"Sakura," Tomoyo began, taking a breath for some further speech - calming or enticing or chiding Sakura would never know. She swayed unsteadily on her feet, her momentum carrying her backwards until she stumbled into a rack of clothes, then rebounded. She blundered forward, eyes hot and blurring, until the sight of Tomoyo lifting a hand towards her urged her to sudden action again.

"Stay away!" Sakura cried out, and she cringed from Tomoyo's hand, darting around Tomoyo to break for the door.

The richly appointed serenity of Tomoyo's bedroom seemed like an alien landscape to her now, tilting in a drunken surreality as Sakura dodged around the heavy furniture and stumbled through the thick carpets. She burst into the corridor, saw servants stopping and turning to stare with their eyes and mouths stretched wide in astonishment. "Don't touch me!" she shrieked, and veered away from their outstretched hands - helpful, or insidious traps? - as she bolted down the hallway towards escape. Not for nothing had she been star of the girl's track team two years running, and her legs lit now with a speed she'd never dreamed she had.

Through her adrenaline-blurred fog she found a door she knew, an arched glass portico that opened from the wing of the mansion into the gardens, now dark with the oncoming winter's night. Light blazed from the mansion behind her, glaring into the darkness, blinding her to all but looming shapes of black on black.

The tight bodice squeezed against Sakura's chest as she heaved for breath, and the heavy skirts of the dress swished against her skirt as she ran. She was barefoot, and could not remember what she had done with her shoes; back in the dressing room, no doubt, along with her old clothes and…  _No! No!_  Tears blurred her vision, blinding her further; she stumbled across the darkness of the lawn until she crashed into the scrub brush at the edge of the property.

The summer's leaves had fallen, crunching dry and dusty underfoot and not quite cushioning her feet from blows against hard sharp rocks and stinging broken twigs. Bare branches whipped and tore at her arms and hands, flung up to shield her face, and dragged at the billowing skirts of her dress. She couldn't move, she couldn't breathe, she couldn't run in this dress; why, why had she let Tomoyo put such bindings on her, why had she walked blindly into this snare every step of the way…?

Her first panicked sprint slowed to the inevitable wearing drag of fatigue; she stopped and turned, panting, to look back through the woods and the darkened slope of the Daidouji household. It blazed with lights, more and more coming on over the lawn and grounds as upset shouting people filtered out of the opening doors. They were mere shapes, silhouetted against the light; she could not tell if any of them were the servants she'd befriended, but it was a certainty that the slim dainty figure of their dark mistress did not move among them.

Sakura took a deep shaking breath, suddenly aware that tears were running down her face to smear coldly on her chin; she wiped them off, but more came to replace them. Trembling with terror and cold, Sakura tugged the trailing hem of her sleeves out of the thornbrake and forced herself onward, her body knowing the route that her mind and eyes could not see.

Because there was really only one place she could go, wasn't there? Home.

And Tomoyo already knew where she lived.

Touya was still at work when Sakura arrived at the house, limping and shivering, dirty and scraped and bedraggled. Her housekey was still in her jeans somewhere back - Sakura's mind shied from the thought -  _there,_  - but the spare key was still hidden under the step of the staircase leading overhead, and Sakura was able to let herself inside. She slammed the door behind herself and locked it, threw the deadbolt, but the apartment still seemed too cold and dark and - empty - anyone could be hiding there! So Sakura retreated to her bedroom; pushed the door shut to lock it, and turned on every light.

Sakura was seized with a sudden paranoia - couldn't those  _things_  turn into bats, or, or mist, and come through the window? She shoved her dresser over until it snubbed up against the window, then thumped her back against the heavy wood, hugging herself and shaking. The familiarity of her old childhood bedroom didn't feel safe, not any more. Not when everything had been turned upside down and ripped inside out.

A movement caught her eye and Sakura whipped her head around - but it was only her own reflection in the mirror that had startled her. She looked  _awful,_  dirty and bedraggled and tear-stained. The ribbons in her hair had been yanked out or pulled askew, and the dress - the beautiful dress was ripped to shreds now, the skirt hanging in rags over her legs, the tattered hem blood-streaked where she'd fallen and cut her knee on a sharp rock.

Ruined - ruined - just like - just like  _everything._  Just like the dream. How could it have all gone so wrong? How could legends and - and nightmares come true, walk so confidently in the day? And she  _had_  seen Tomoyo walk in the daylight, under her hats and gloves and parasols, and how was that even possible? Maybe… maybe there had been some mistake, maybe she'd freaked out and run away about nothing at all…

A faint flash of red at her throat; Sakura turned her head in the mirror to see it better, the tiniest of toothmarks.  _It was real._ She's _real. Tomoyo is… my best friend is…_

The implications were only beginning to dawn on her. This childish panic and flight would do her no good; Tomoyo knew where she lived. But if she were going to hunt Sakura down, she could have done so at once; Tomoyo's grim dark-clad bodyguard could have been waiting for her at the apartment. Where else could she go? All of her friends were gone, shuffled out of Tomoeda on those oh-so-conveniently timed excuses; none of her classmates or teaches would know what to do, if she stumbled into their homes in the middle of the night babbling about… monsters and vampires.

But what  _could_  she do? Who could she tell? No one would believe her, no one. No one  _could_  help her, not even Touya, and he'd only be in danger if he tried.

Could she run away? Where to? The Daidouji family was huge and powerful, with connections everywhere; Touya had said so. Even among the police. Everywhere in Japan, even in other countries. There was nowhere she could go that Tomoyo would not be able to find her. Tomoyo would track her down, and then… Sakura shivered convulsively.

But new thoughts were beginning to make their way across the panic. And then  _what?_  Tomoyo hadn't hurt her. Hadn't moved against her her at all. But for that offer -  _that terrible, velvet-voiced, soul-shaking offer_ \- Tomoyo had made no threats or demands on her at all. Except the one.  _My whole life._

What if she said no?  _Could_  she say no? Touya's voice came back to her, serious and cynical, weeks and weeks too late -  _A girl from a wealthy, powerful family like that, chances are she's used to getting everything she wants._  She remembered the look of cerulean fire in Tomoyo's eyes, when she'd first turned away from the mirror; no, saint or monster, that was not a creature that would easily take  _no_  for an answer.

Sakura's shivering increased until her teeth were chattering, and she doubled over herself, wrapping her arms around her own torso.  _No, no! I won't believe it, I won't. Tomoyo would never hurt me… she's my friend… she…_

"I can't," Sakura sobbed. The tears had never stopped leaking from her eyes, running silent and cold down her cheeks; but now they poured forth fresh and hot again. Sakura curled herself into a ball, pressed her face into her knees. "I can't, I can't."

The choice loomed up before her, silent and implacable. She couldn't say  _yes_  to Tomoyo's terrible offer, she couldn't. But even if she said  _no,_  it was too late; she'd already lost everything. Her best friend. Her marvelous dress. The glorious dream-world. The beautiful girl in the mirror, the one shining link to her mother's memory.

Innocence.

* * *

"Sakura?" Touya called out impatiently, rattling the door handle. It was more for effect than anything else; he'd already tried it and found it locked, something that Sakura had never bothered to do for years and years. Not since she'd shut herself away, crying inconsolably, after the death of their father. "Sakura, answer me!"

For days at a time she'd stayed in there, coming out only for miserable hurting meals, never quite stopping crying. Touya had felt like crying too, but he'd had responsibilities, he'd had duties, things he had to do to support them both now that it had fallen on him to protect his little sister. It had been a heavy weight, almost crushing, but at the same time it had borne him up steadily, knowing that this was what he had to do to make things better. "Sakura, please!"

"Go away!" his little sister's voice wailed from behind the barrier of the locked door.

"Won't you come out?" Touya pleaded, mind racing furiously as he tried to come up with some cause for this miserable withdrawal, some solution. "Come on, let's have ice cream. Tell me all about it."

"You wouldn't under _stand_ ," Sakura replied, her voice breaking at the end into a cry.

"If you won't come out, can I come in?" Touya tried desperately. There wasn't much room in the tiny, crowded bedroom for him, but he could sit beside the floor and pet her hair while she cried on his shoulder. Even if she dripped snot all over his work uniform, at least that would be a start. "Just tell me what's wrong. I'll find some way to help, I promise. I swear."

"You can't," Sakura's voice came through the door, miserable despite the muffling. "There's - there's nothing you c-can do to make this right."

Touya glared at the blank door, resisting a hateful urge to kick it down. "Sakura, what is this all about?" Panic was beginning to edge his voice, and anger; he fought to keep it down, lest she think he was angry at  _her._  "Is this about her? That Daidouji girl, is this all her fault?"

There was a pregnant pause from the other side of the door, just the silence enough of an affirmation to kick Touya's wild suspicion over into fury. "There's nothing you can do about it," Sakura's voice came back, the misery clear despite the muffling of the wood. "Please, Touya, j-just leave me alone. I want to be alone."

That was a  _yes._  Touya was sure of it. Daidouji, had done this, Daidouji Tomoyo had  _made his sister cry._

A tiny sting of pain brought him back to himself, and he realized he was standing outside Sakura's door with his fists clenched so tightly that his nails were in danger of drawing blood. He inhaled - his first breath in several minutes, it seemed laced with fire - tried to find some comforting words, and failed. He turned away from Sakura's door and walked away, making his footfalls as soft an unobtrusive as possible; but he could hear, as he moved away, the muffled sniffling resume.

Touya went to his own room across the hall, and stripped off his work jacket, the cartoonish mascot of the chain blazed across the back. In a burst of temper he threw it across the room hard enough that it knocked the heavy coat rack against the wall; and stood there glaring at it as though it were to blame for all his troubles.

Why did Sakura have to be so stubborn? All his warnings, all his arguments, all his research and snooping and under-the-table maneuvering to try to find out the truth about the Daidouji family, and it had all been for nothing. He hadn't been able to stop Sakura from getting too close to the fire; and now she'd been burned. His little sister had been hurt, and Touya hadn't been there to protect her. A tiny, unworthy part of Touya wanted to jump up and down and yell  _I told you so! I warned you! You should have listened!_ But the last thing he wanted was to make Sakura feel worse right now by rubbing her nose in it. Besides, he didn't blame Sakura for this mess; he blamed that Daidouji girl.

That girl! Touya wasn't blind, it was obvious to see that over the past few weeks their relationship - that creeping obsession - had gone somewhere beyond the bounds of innocent girlish infatuation. He didn't know all that had passed between them, but he did know that Sakura wasn't hiding in her room crying her heart out over any mere spat between childhood friends. And if that girl - that spoiled, rich, malevolent  _brat_  of a girl - thought she could play with Sakura's heart and then break it in half for fun, she would soon learn otherwise.  _He_  would teach her otherwise.

Touya reached into his closet and yanked out another jacket, one he hadn't worn in years. It was dark leather with glossy black trimmings and it had made his teenage self feel cool and dangerous; but on a washed-up high school dropout struggling to hold a menial part-time job, it had just felt stupid. He pulled it on now, and fumbled a dark baseball cap and a pair of leather gloves from a corner of his closet and jammed them on.

He resisted the urge to slam the door behind him; his anger was threatening to spurt off in all directions if he didn't control it, but there was no sense in upsetting Sakura. Worse, if she knew where he was going she might take it on herself to stop him, or try to talk him out of that, and Touya didn't want to deal with that right now.

The night air was cold and soggy, hanging in misty haloes around the streetlamps and wetting down the pavement with a slickness that was not quite cold enough to be icy. The streets were almost deserted, and Touya walked briskly past the neon glow of the vending machines and dark, hallowed out storefronts with his anger keeping him nicely warm.

He didn't know his way among the back-lot woods that would provide the shortest line between their apartment building and the Daidouji mansion, but he'd memorized the street routes long since. He turned aside before he reached the end of the long, brightly-lit driveway that was the official street-numbered residence of the Daidouji mansion, and walked instead down a little side-road running along the extensive grounds.

His view was blocked by a hedge, growing up and around a tall metal fence; Touya paced along it until he found a suitable gnarled tree that could give him the necessary boost. A bit of a scramble and a leap, a grab and heave, and Touya dropped onto the manicured grass on the mansion's lawn with barely more than a quiet grunt.

The house seemed oddly lit-up and active for this time of night, not that Touya had known what to expect; he avoided the brightly-lit front gate and driveway and circled around towards the back of the house, taking ruthless advantage of the darkened topiaries for cover. From all that Sakura had said about the Daidouji girl, she would most likely be in her rooms, which were more towards the back of the house by the garden. With all those windows, at least one was likely to be unlocked, and he could make his plan from there.

Touya entertained a nagging uneasy thought that told him how stupid this was, breaking and entering on the property of a rich and powerful family that had just proven itself to be every bit as unpleasant as all his dire warnings to Sakura; but he brought the memory of Sakura's heart-wrenching sobs firmly back to his mind, and pushed the concern aside. All he had to do was get face-to-face with the Daidouji girl for long enough to give her a piece of his mind - and possibly put a little bit of the fear of God into her against bothering Sakura any more in the future.

A shifting motion in the darkness ahead of him was his only warning; he didn't hear so much of a footstep when the hulking shadow rushed towards him. A hand like a steel clamp fell on his shoulder, sending him stumbling and slipping across the wet grass. "What are you doing here, punk?" snarled a deep, dangerous voice that more properly ought to have come out of a mountain lion, or maybe just the mountain. "Looking for trouble, uh? Well, you've found it -"

"Let go of me, you filthy thug!" Touya gritted out from between his teeth, yanking and twisting sideways. With a wrench that felt like it nearly dislocated his shoulders, he managed to drop forward and slither out of his jacket, leaving the hulking figure with an empty shell. He rolled across the muddy ground and came to his feet, glaring across the space at his sudden assailant. The man was  _huge,_  looming more than two meters high and seeming half that broad, dressed in the same uniform as he'd seen on the men moving around out by the driveway. Security, then,  _shit!_ The reflected light from the house made the hulking man's eyes show up a deep unsettling red. Touya wavered for a moment in the balance between anger and shocked alarm - his impulse was to run away, but he didn't want to get  _away,_  not until he got what he came for -

That hesitation was a mistake, because the dark figure moved with the speed of a striking snake; this time the steel hand landed on his left shoulder and right arm, yanking his wrist up behind his back. " _Got_  you," the deep voice ripped out in triumph, and there was something to that; for all Touya struggled, he wasn't able to twist away a second time.

"Kurogane."

The measured female voice seemed to speak out of nowhere, and Touya startled, looking reflexively about him. The hulk growled and freed one hand up to touch his ear; now that he knew where to look, Touya was able to identify the black earpiece snaking up the side of his neck to his ear. "What?" he snapped back to the air. "I just apprehended an intruder, this is not a good time -"

"Is it Kinomoto-san's brother?"

The hulk sized him up, those narrow red eyes bringing a chill to Touya's spine despite his outrage. "Yeah," the man said, halfway between a growl and a sigh. Touya felt a spasm of shock; he'd never seen this man before in his life! He would definitely  _not_  have forgotten him. He managed to keep himself from blurting out  _How the hell do you know my name_ , instead just keeping it to a return glare.

"Bring him here."

"Lady Tomoyo, he was sneaking across the grounds in the middle of the night," the thug protested, and Touya tensed. So that was the Daidouji girl's voice? "Surely you can't -"

"I've been expecting him. Bring him here. It's time for us to meet face-to-face."

Touya expressed a silent, but vehement agreement with this; the burly man closed his mouth on any further protest and only vented a beleaguered sigh. The channel went dead; Touya's captor gave him another heated glower, this one seeming more resigned than hostile, and began hauling him by the arm towards the front of the house.

After a few steps Touya managed to regain his own footing and shook the bigger man violently away in order to walk under his own power. So he was going to see the Daidouji girl after all. This wasn't quite how he'd planned for this meeting to go, but as long as he accomplished his goal, he didn't much care how.

The brilliantly lit doors and hallways nearly blinded his dark-adapted eyes; the luxurious walls and carpeting passed by his notice. They passed by a number of people in the hallways, or hovering in doorways looking after them; servants, Touya guessed by their clothing and attitudes. Certainly no sign of the senior Daidoujis, Tomoyo's parents. By now, he wasn't even surprised by that lack.

At last they came to a set of large, decorated double doors; by this time Touya's eyes had adjusted enough to make out the colorful, intricate enamel decorating the panes and the ornately decorated handles. The brute who'd been escorting - shepherding - him this far took a step forward and knocked on the doors, then opened one of them and stood aside.

"Go ahead," he said, his red eyes a curious unsettling weight on Touya. "You asked for it."

Touya ignored that bizarre statement and walked past him into a richly appointed room. The details of the carpets and drapes, paneling and wallpaper and furniture flitted past his eyes and were dismissed; his eyes locked immediately on the slim figure sitting very upright on a velvet-padded sedan chair. At the very center of the room, like a spider in the center of her web - the image flashed up instantly in Touya's mind, and he quickly dismissed it, taking in the first sight of his nemesis.

She looked to be about Sakura's age, but without any of Sakura's awkwardness; her features were delicately pointed, almost elfin, her hair a shining river of night that flowed over one shoulder to coil on her chest. Jewelry glittered from her throat, her hands, her ears; sparks of ostentatious wealth complementing the rich beauty of her dress.  _Just as I thought, spoiled rotten._ Touya ignored it as he stepped forward, meeting her eyes.

And that was all he knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More author's notes: The particular type of vampire that Tomoyo represents here was inspired by a number of sources. Twilight was not one of them. In case you were wondering.
> 
> Primary would be Madness Season by C.S. Friedman, a very good 'Vampires vs. Aliens' sci-fi book; to a lesser extent would be Velvet Mace's vampires from her Sherlock series, which introduced among others the concept of vampires taking humans as mates.
> 
> While I am not generally a big vampire fan and tend to think that removing their traditional mythical weaknesses (sunlight, holy water etc) is 'cheating,' this particular interpretation of vampires sees them less as monsters and more as a subset of the human race who evolved for long, slow lifespans with very low and controlled fertility, intended to act as long-term lorekeepers and even caretakers of the human race. Their relationship with mankind is therefore intended to be symbiotic, not parasitic or predatory.


	3. Chapter 3

Sakura was alerted not by Touya slipping out, but by him coming back. After finally crying herself out, she'd taken a shower and changed into some clean clothes - something plain, shapeless and warm, and not a hint of pink. She'd even manage to stir herself to eat something, but she'd walked through the kitchen in a daze and retreated back to her room as soon as she had something edible in hand. It wasn't until the door rattled and swung open on the cold damp air that Sakura roused herself from the self-absorbed fog of misery she was in and realized she hadn't seen or heard Touya moving about the apartment for hours.

Sudden, altogether belated panic seized Sakura; surely Touya hadn't gone charging out into the night with some mad idea of confronting Tomoyo, had he? She hadn't told him anything, she knew she couldn't tell him anything, because if he involved himself with Tomoyo he wouldn't be safe... but what if he had figured things out somehow? She poked her head uneasily around the jamb of her doorframe; Touya was taking off his sneakers in the genkan, and shrugging off a leather jacket that was beaded from the wet air. He seemed perfectly normal and nonchalant, and Sakura breathed a little easier.

Obviously nothing had happened. Touya must have just gone out to the conbini for something… Sakura's eyes slid over to the clock on the wall, and the glowing digital numbers hit her with a jolt; it was past midnight. When had it gotten to be so late?

"Brother?" Sakura asked tentatively, sidling around the doorframe. "Where were… What did you go out for?"

Touya looked up in mild surprise at hearing her voice. "Oh, you're still up?" he said. "I thought you'd gone to bed a while ago. It's late."

His voice was perfectly calm and uninterested, nothing to inspire alarm at all… yet somehow it made Sakura uneasy. It was too calm, devoid of inflection… just a few hours ago he'd been pounding on her door demanding that he tell her what was wrong; wasn't he even a little bit worried about her now?

"N…no, I'm not sleepy yet," Sakura said, and stepped fully out of her bedroom. "But it's awfully late to be out… where were you?"

"Oh. I was at Tomoyo's house, of course," Touya explained carelessly. He stepped out of the genkan and toed on his house slippers, dropping the jacket casually over the back of a chair. "What with this and that, I didn't realize how late it had gotten."

An icy dagger seemed to drop through Sakura's chest into her stomach. It was just as she had feared! But… why was he so calm? "You didn't yell at her?" Sakura asked apprehensively. After all their explosive arguments about Tomoyo, surely he would have blown up at her as soon as he'd gotten in her presence? And what if he'd made her angry?

"No, why would I?" Touya looked surprised. "She's a perfectly nice girl. Just as you've always said. I don't have any problems with Tomoyo Daidouji. Why would I go over to someone else's house just to pick a fight with them? That would be absurd."

"But…" Sakura trailed off, confused. Absurd or not, that was exactly the sort of thing that Touya did. He'd picked fights with the neighbor in their old apartment building who'd set their dog on Sakura to frighten her; he'd actually come to Tomoeda in the middle of the school day to confront a chemistry teacher who'd bullied Sakura harshly enough to make her cry. Sakura had always been embarrassed, but secretly grateful, for Touya's uncompromising and belligerent protection.

Touya snapped the door lock behind him, and headed for his own bedroom. He passed by Sakura standing in the hall without even a glance; the look in his eyes made Sakura shiver despite the bulky sweatshirt. Despite the calm, unconcerned expression on his face, there was something… off about his eyes, something vague and unfocused as though he were sleepwalking.

"Brother?" Sakura trailed after him uncertainly, pausing at the door to his own bedroom. Touya seated himself at his rickety desk and pulled open a drawer, riffling around for a stack of papers and a pen. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, I just thought I'd get a jump on these applications before I went to bed," Touya said.

"Applications?" Sakura's heart gave a startled little jump, and her mouth went dry. "What applications?"

"For college, of course," Touya sounded surprised she needed to ask. "The sooner I get my application essays in the mail, the better. I'm pretty late off the mark, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem - a lot of people take a year to work before they enter university, and I've just taken a few more than one." He chuckled, expression turning wry and thoughtful. "They do say that taking a year off gives you more of a chance to be sure you know what you want to major in, and that part sure is true - I know exactly what I plan to do."

"College? University?" Sakura stared at Touya in bewilderment. She half expected him to twit her about being a parrot or a broken record, but he didn't even look up from the stack of forms. "But - but what about your jobs?"

"Hmm? Well, I'm sure Miss Matsumoto will be able to find someone to replace me," Touya said, scratching his chin with the pen. "I can probably find a part-time job somewhere in Kyoto, if I end up getting accepted there. Depending on what the rents are like, I might be able to get a flat, although student housing would be a lot cheaper."

A small smile touched his lips, transforming his face. "Kyoto is where Yukito is living, after all. He's graduating in the spring. I wonder if he can put me up until I find a place?" He bent back to his work with the smile still on his face.

"But -" Sakura stared at the back of Touya's head, feeling increasingly like the world was spinning away from her. "But, Brother, what about me?" she wailed.

Touya looked up at her and blinked, and the remote, empty look in his eyes was stronger than ever. "Well, you don't have to move to Kyoto if you don't want to, of course," he said, sounding mildly puzzled. "I know you like this place."

"No, I mean, but -" Sakura bit her lip, she didn't want to be selfish, she didn't want to whine, but - "If you quit your job and move away, what am I going to do?"

"Hmm? Well, I'm sure something will come up," Touya said vaguely. "You're a smart girl with a lot of resources, I know you'll be able to take care of yourself just fine."

And with that, he turned his back on her.

Sakura felt the world drop out from under her. A few hours ago, she only thought her life had been turned inside out, where friend became foe and nightmares appeared in waking daylight. But now she realized that despite her shock, she hadn't been nearly as frightened then as she was now. Now, it was the very foundation of her life, her family and home, that had been torn away in the blink of an eye.

Sakura had told herself - tragically and self-sacrificingly - that she wouldn't involve Touya in her business with Tomoyo, that she didn't want any harm to come to him. But that had just been a silly, self-serving fantasy; she had unconsciously still assumed that if things got too out of control, she could go to Touya and he would protect her, he would make everything right as he always had.

If her big brother, the one who had always protected her, the one who had looked out for her and supported her and sacrificed for her when everyone else in her life had failed or abandoned or left them - if Touya would not help her, then who would? Who could?

She wanted to cry, but she'd sobbed out all her useless tears hours earlier. Instead, Sakura reached down inside her, to some previously untapped well of strength; and made herself let go, step back from her brother's bedroom door and close it quietly behind her. She sniffed deeply, and forced her chin up and her shoulders back.

Well.

If no one else would save her, then she'd just have to save herself.

"Brother?" Sakura hovered in the doorway to Touya's bedroom. "Brother, I'm going out now," she said.

"Okay," Touya said. He didn't sound very interested.

Sakura swallowed. "To, to Tomoyo's place," she said defiantly.

That got a brief flare of interest - but nothing like the angry, defensive suspicion he had always shown before. "Okay," Touya said. "Say hi to her for me."

A lump caught in Sakura's throat, and she had to swallow again - harder - to force it down so she could speak. Wasn't there anything she could say to make him care? "I - I'm not sure when I'll be back," her voice quavered, "so you might have to think about your own dinner."

"That's fine," Touya said. "Oh, wait," he said, looking up as Sakura started to turn away.

Sakura turned back, heart thumping. "Yes?" she said breathlessly. It hung on the tip of her tongue to throw herself on him, to beg him to protect her, to make him break through this fog of careless disinterest.

"If you're going to be out all day anyway, make sure you don't come back before three," Touya said. "I've got some people coming to look at the apartment, and it'll be easier to show them around if you're not getting underfoot."

The breath seemed to squeeze out of Sakura's throat, suffocated by hurt and panic. She tried to speak, couldn't, and in the end just turned and walked away. She couldn't stay here any longer. She had to face this at the center of all her troubles.

Sakura walked out of the apartment building and stopped dead. Although nobody had come to their door, the black limousine sat crouched in their apartment building's parking lot again. From this distance, through the tinted windows, Sakura couldn't tell if the driver was Fai or one of the other valets. Either way the message was clear: if Sakura wanted to return to the Daidouji household, Tomoyo was ready and waiting.

Well, so what? She wasn't going to be delivered up on a platter; she would walk on her own two feet. Sakura tossed her head and walked straight on past the limousine, her shoulders twinging with the effort not to look over her shoulder. Nobody called out to her or ran after her, anyway, and her breath eased a bit as the parking lot fell away behind her.

As she pushed her way through the thornbrake, wading through drifts of fallen leaves, Sakura was hit by an almost nauseating surrealness. Although she'd been in and out of Tomoyo's house for weeks, she had stopped coming through the back-lot route a long time ago; Fai or one of the other valets always took her back and forth. But the old, familiar words was a new and undiscovered country to her today; what lay behind her was no longer her home, and what was ahead she was afraid to even imagine.

Down here in the ravine along the dry creekbed, out of sight of any of the houses, Sakura felt like she was pushing through some dire borderland into another world, and was suddenly reminded of stories of mischievous fox sprites who would lure travelers away into the woods and strand them there. It was just fairy stories, of course, nothing to be afraid of.

Like vampires?

Sakura shivered, despite her jacket and the waning autumn sun. She hurried along faster than ever, jumping from one slippery rock to another and skimming her palms on tree branches to steady her. At last she jumped over the last barrier - the low concrete channel trickling with black water - and burst through the brush onto the edge of the Daidouji estate.

For a moment she stopped stock still, frozen at the edge of the lawn as she stared up at the mansion. More than ever the house looked like a fairy castle, and that did nothing to lessen the unreality of her journey. It all looked so peaceful, so sunny and tranquil; there was no way that house could be hiding a… a blood sucking creature of the night, could it?

Steps which had hurried along before now dragged reluctantly, as Sakura toiled up the hill towards the house. There hardly seemed to be anyone around. Were they out looking for her? But when at last she spotted a human figure - nearly jumping out of her skin in fright before she identified it as the old groundskeeper - he barely looked up at her. In fact, he seemed to be avoiding her eyes.

The driver of the black car hadn't chased after her, either; it seemed the servants were under orders to leave her alone. Sakura took some heart from that, straightening her shoulders and marching into the house more confidently. The way the maids and servants slid out from under her gaze and scurried aside when she approached made her at once feel oddly powerful, and deeply distressed. How had everything gone so bad so fast?

"In the solarium, Miss," one of the maids said, in a subdued and almost frightened tone. She, too, refused to meet Sakura's eyes.

Sakura flung open the door, and a strange tableau struck her eyes.

The room inside was wide and high-ceilinged, with many tall glass windows set along the walls, but each of them was completely blocked off from the daylight outside by a set of heavy velvet curtains. The only light in the room came from a ring of low-lit, golden table lamps scattered on desks and tabletops around the room, none higher than chest-height.

In the center of the room sat Tomoyo, her dress arranged in a train around her. For the first time Sakura had ever seen her, she wore entirely black, a dress with fluffy black wool lace bunched over smooth black satin. A fine veil was drawn over her head and face, but for once she wore no hat nor visor.

"Welcome, Sakura," Tomoyo said, and her voice was as smooth and sweet as honey and as dark as the velvet curtains. "I am glad you have returned. I was hoping that a night's rest in a safe, familiar environment would help you steady your mind."

Sakura was seized by a surge of anger; she felt a sudden impulsive urge to march across the room and yank open those curtains, flood the room with daylight. See how Tomoyo liked that. The only thing that stopped her was the knowledge that she had seen Tomoyo standing in full daylight before; it wasn't likely to do more than annoy her. And that… probably wouldn't help her much now.

So instead she took a deep breath, marched forward and planted her feet in the carpet in front of Tomoyo, and demanded: "What did you do to my brother?"

Tomoyo raised her elegant eyebrows. "Nothing," she replied. "Nothing harmful, that is. I merely… reassured him. Set his fears to rest."

"You did more than reassure him!" The choking, overwhelming feel of panic she'd been fighting all day returned - born of calling Touya's name last night and this morning and seeing the long distance in his eyes. "He's talking about quitting his jobs, and transferring the lease of our apartment, and, and applying to college and everything! He's moving away!"

"Why, yes," Tomoyo said equitably. "That was what you desired, was it not? For your brother to look to his own needs, to concentrate on his own future, rather than destroying his life by continuing to care solely about you?"

"No!" Wasn't it? Sakura wondered. Be careful what you wish for, she thought with chilling dismay.

"I only encouraged him to do so, offering some modest financial incentives of my own, of course," Tomoyo went on. "It wasn't really all that difficult. In the end, even we cannot compel humans to do things they are not secretly willing to do."

"Compel humans?" Sakura drew in her breath, feeling a cold spike of terror. She fought it back with anger. "Well, if it's so easy to 'compel' us 'humans,' why didn't you just mind-control me into… staying here in the first place? Why this whole charade with the dress?" It wasn't just the dress, Sakura was realizing. Everything Tomoyo had done, from the very beginning, had been designed to draw Sakura in, to make her dependant on Tomoyo. The food, the clothes, the car rides, the fancy parties - the sudden, convenient relocation of all Sakura's other friends - and now Sakura's very own brother…

"I wouldn't do that," Tomoyo said, sounding surprised. "I couldn't do that. If you agreed to become mine, it could only be of your own free will! To use compulsion on you would be unfair."

"Oh yeah?" Sakura felt a stab of savage sarcasm. "Well, how 'fair' is it for you to take away my only source of support? I don't have any money of my own, I can't get a job yet! Without Touya, I don't have anywhere to go! That's cheating!"

A moment of thoughtful pause, and then Tomoyo lifted her slender shoulders in a tiny shrug. "I suppose it might seem like that to you," she said. "But not according to how my people do these things."

"Your people…" Sakura gulped, and rocked back on her heels. The anger which had sustained her, driven her to speak out, had drained away - but with it had faded much of the tearing panic that had driven her out of this house the night before. She stood face-to-face with a… a vampire, but Tomoyo hadn't attacked her yet; they were speaking calmly and reasonably instead. Finally, her driving curiosity was allowed to gain the upper hand, and she blurted out, "Who are you? What are you?"

Tomoyo settled back in her grand chair, folding her hands across her lap. "I suppose the time has come for you to know," she said. "I never wished to lie to you, dear Sakura, but in order to be left in peace in this world, my people must practice a certain amount of discretion.

"I was indeed born in this country, in Japan, but not the Japan that you know. I was born - in the manner of my people - in Kan'ei year thirteen, which by the modern Gregorian calendar would translate to the year of Our Lord sixteen-thirty two."

The number stunned Sakura, and she tried frantically to do the math in her head. That would mean - that meant that Tomoyo was over three hundred years old…

"Among my people, I would still be considered young," Tomoyo said calmly, as though Sakura had spoken aloud. "Since time unremembered, we have always made our way through the world and hidden our nature by traveling from one place to the next, so that people would not think to notice that we did not seem to age. We do, of course, although our lifespans are much longer than that of you humans.

"As the world around us grew wider, so too did our travels. Instead of merely traveling from one country hamlet to the next, we began to travel between countries. The widening world was a great boon to us, as it allowed us to more easily disguise our nature - people always expect foreigners to be a little strange.

"I passed through the country of my birth two times since we first departed; the most recent was in the early nineteen hundreds, which was where I acquired a taste for these fashions. That was not the only thing I picked up during that trip," Tomoyo said, directing her words with a fond smile to a darkened corner of the room. Sakura instinctively followed her gaze, and managed to pick out the dark form of tall, red-eyed Kurogane lurking in the shadows. He didn't smile in return, but Sakura thought his grim mouth softened a bit, at the reminder.

"But…" Sakura tried to push past this sudden spate of history. "But what are you - really? You can't really be a vampire. I mean, I know I've seen you out in the sunlight…"

Tomoyo sighed. "Over time, it was inevitable that humans should catch glimpses enough of our true nature to generate ignorant legends," she said. "We are stronger than humans, and longer-lived, and can recover from many serious wounds without difficulty. Yes, we drink blood, but we do not shun garlic or Christian crosses or any of that nonsense. We do avoid the sunlight, because my people evolved to be children of the night, and we have no natural mechanisms to protect ourselves against the sun's damaging radiation. Given only a few minutes in the sun, and we will start to burn; a full day in the sunlight, without any protection or relief, might well be enough to kill us.

"But still," she added briskly, "that's only true for direct sunlight, and we can take precautions to protect ourselves similar to what any pale, sunburn-prone human might do. I do so bless whatever clever scientist came up with commercial sunblock, I must say. It makes things ever so much easier." She smiled demurely.

"Can you really - mind-control people?" Sakura said in a small voice.

"To some extent, yes. In the last hundred recent years, I have to say I've rarely needed to compel humans in any uncanny fashion; simple money usually has the same effect. It's strange," she added reflectively, her voice distant. "Our glamour may have helped us to amass this fortune in the first place, but now that we have it, we rarely ever need the glamour at all. In eras past, members of my family used our abilities to prove ourselves avatars of the gods, in order to command respect and obedience from humans. Nowadays, all we have to be is rich."

Sakura thought of Rika's scholarship; of Naoko's father's new job; tried hard not to think of the fire in Chiharu's apartment at night. Instead, she wrenched her thoughts around to face the one question that had been nagging at the back of her mind all day and night - for weeks, if she was being honest, ever since Tomoyo had invited her in the first place. "Why me?" she burst out. "Why - why do you want me to be your - whatever it is that you want? I'm not special, or pretty or rich or clever. I'm just a stupid ugly tomboy who fails half her homework assignments and mooches off others. Why do you want me of all the people out there?"

"Dear Sakura..." And Tomoyo broke into a soft laugh, continuing to chuckle for several moments before she regained command of herself. "You are so young. You understand so little. You are special, in ways you barely comprehend. Your spirit is so bright, your body so full of energy and life. It draws me - it would draw any of my kind - like a moth to a flame. I wonder if there is not something else within you as well, some greater potential left untapped; in another place, another time, you might have commanded some powerful magic of your own.

"But there is more to it than that. Any vampire would desire you, but I do more than desire. I need you. Since I first laid eyes on you, since I scented your skin, since I tasted your blood, none others would suffice for me. We can drink from anyone, you know, but every since you first appeared in my garden all other blood has grown thin and bitter to me. It is all for naught. I must have you, Sakura, or I will continue to wither until I die."

She said that so calmly, so devoid of passion, that Sakura recoiled as though Tomoyo had screamed those words in her ear. No, that couldn't be! Tomoyo - die? Go away? All that wry humor, that gentle wisdom, that musical voice - silenced forever? That beauty withered, that tempered power drained? The thought rocked Sakura, and reignited the suffocating panic within her: not for Touya this time, nor even for herself, but for Tomoyo. Lose Tomoyo? She couldn't - she couldn't, because without Tomoyo… without Tomoyo, she had no one at all…

"That's not fair," she burst out, through the strangling constriction in her throat. "It's not! You can't just put that on me, that I have to say yes to you or you'll die! It's not right!"

"I never said it was, my darling one," Tomoyo said, still in that strange calm voice. "The ways of my people have never been much for fairness. We must take from humans in order to survive - but we have much to give in return. In that, I believe, we are not so very different from you."

Sakura fell silent, her thoughts racing. Her heart racing. At length, she swallowed hard, licking her lips to try to moisten them for speech. It was a futile effort, as her tongue was dry as a rag. "If I say yes," she said in a rusty voice. "If you - I - if you drink my blood. Will I… will I die?"

"No!" Shocked outrage flashed over Tomoyo's face; for the first time in this conversation, she seemed actually offended. "Of course not! It doesn't even hurt. I do not enjoy causing pain."

"Will I…" Sakura floundered, sorting through what she knew of vampire myth and legend. "Will I become a vampire? Will… will you make me drink your blood too?"

"No." Tomoyo settled back against the sedan with a sigh. "I do not need to burden you with the details now, but there is far more that goes into birthing a new vampire than a mere bite. If you were to drink my blood, you might become stronger, more resistant to disease, than you are now - in the past, those humans so graced were longer-lived, but in the world of today's modern medicine, the difference is negligible." Was it Sakura's imagination, or did Tomoyo's gaze flicker briefly to the corner containing Kurogane?

There was another long silence. The beating of Sakura's heart felt like the loudest sound in the room, hot and stuffy with all the velvet curtains drawn. She tried to look anywhere away, but all the light in the room drew her eyes inevitably back to Tomoyo.

"You have to take care of my brother," she said finally. "Promise me that you'll pay for university for him, and whatever else he needs to be happy."

"Of course," Tomoyo said. She had gone very still, so still she almost seemed to quiver, like Opal preparing to pounce on a toy. "I would do no less for my esteemed brother-in-law."

"And Naoko and Rika, too," Sakura went on. "I want you to make sure they're okay, too."

"Certainly," Tomoyo said.

"And… and Chiharu, too," Sakura forced out. She was trying not to think too hard about that fire, because if she did, she would never be able to go through with this. "I want you to promise me that she and her mother will be okay, and nothing else bad will happen to them. And that they have everything they need."

A flicker of annoyance showed in Tomoyo's eyes, but only the faintest tightening of her lips betrayed it. "Very well," she said quietly. "If that is what you desire."

"Then…" Sakura took a deep breath; she felt like she was teetering on the edge of a diving board, or at the very peak of a roller coaster before the drop. But once gravity took her, there would be no choice but to go through with the fall. "Then I accept."

Tomoyo… snapped, that was the only word Sakura knew to describe it, and even that was not nearly enough. It was as though there had been something that, up until this moment, she had held tightly furled within her, which now unraveled and opened with a fierce vengeance. She reached up to draw the veil back from her face and opened her eyes wide. She smiled, really smiled widely for the first time since Sakura had met her, lips drawing back to leave her fangs fully exposed.

Tomoyo stood up; although she was the same height she had always been, she seemed to unfold and unfold until she towered above Sakura. Her dark hair, black and glossy as night, uncurled along her shoulders, its glossy coils slipping over each other as though they had a life of their own. Her eyes glowed purple, unnaturally bright, as though a fire burned behind them to light her from within.

"You accept this contract?" Tomoyo asked, and her voice rang and reverberated around the room. "To become my chalice, to supply me with blood whensoever I should require or desire it?"

"Yes," Sakura said, her voice small and shaky. She was trembling as Tomoyo stepped towards her, but she felt rooted in place, unable to flee.

Tomoyo took another step forward. She was hypnotic, magnetic, bending the air around her until she was wreathed in an aura of candlelight. "To be bound in my household, under my protection and my will, until death or a higher power release you?"

"Yes," Sakura whispered.

Tomoyo stepped forward again, to within arms reach of Sakura. She did not dare to reach out and touch that coruscating aura, but Tomoyo did; she touched one ice-white finger to Sakura's face, and trailed it gently down along her cheekbones, over the line of her jaw, turning under her chin to tilt her face upwards. "To be my companion," Tomoyo breathed, "my lover, to come to my bed when I call, to share and receive my gifts of pleasure freely and without hesitance?"

Sakura's mouth dropped open, and she gulped for air; it seemed to have taken fire in her lungs. She wasn't sure she understood what Tomoyo was asking, and what she did understand frightened her; but oh, she wanted it, she wanted it more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life. "Y-yes," she squeaked. "I-I do."

"Then I accept you in turn," Tomoyo breathed, and the words made Sakura's skin shudder. "My Sakura, my darling one… my pet, my chalice, my bride."

She tilted Sakura's chin further upward, and Sakura held her breath as she clutched her hands together. This was it, then, Tomoyo was going to - to bite her neck, to drink her blood. Would it hurt? Tomoyo had said not, but Tomoyo wasn't the one being bitten. How would she know? She swallowed what felt like a boulder in her throat; her neck already hurt, muscles throbbing with anticipatory tension.

To her confusion, though, Tomoyo did not bite down on the exposed column of her neck. Instead, those pale hands skimmed lightly down the sides of her neck to her shoulders, flowing along her collarbones to the front of her shirt. She felt the light grinding tug of her jacket's zipper being lowered, and then heard the shirring sound of ripping fabric. Tomoyo's head hovered, dipped; her hands pushed the torn shirt back over Sakura's bare shoulders, and her lips touched lightly on the indentation of Sakura's collarbone. Just the faintest of pressure from the tips of her teeth, needle-sharp, pricking like the necklace she'd given to Sakura when she promised not to leave her.

"Wha- what are you doing?" Sakura choked out.

"Claiming what is mine," Tomoyo said, her voice thick with hunger and lust. "Now, and forever."

Her hands slid down Sakura's back, trailing icy fire in its wake; they caressed the curves of her sides before settling in a surprisingly strong grip on Sakura's hipbones, trapping her in place. Instinctively Sakura raised her own arms, wrapping them over the top of Tomoyo's shoulder for a grip. She could only see the top of Tomoyo's head from this angle, and a slanted sliver of her face, her eyelids heavy over those glowing eyes. "T-tomoyo?" she asked, voice wavering in her throat. She felt hot and cold at once, every inch of her body thudding to the beat of her own heart; blood racing along in her veins, demanding its release. "Please…"

"Hush," Tomoyo murmured against her skin. He tongue flickered out, trailing a line of dampness down from Sakura's collarbone, over the skin of Sakura's chest. Although most of the rest of her was tanned from spending time outdoors in the sun - all that summer practice with the track and gymnastic teams, all that time spent tramping through the woods - here, where it had been hidden by her shirt and bra, the skin was pale and clear enough to clearly show the light blue vein tracing along her skin. Sakura took a deep breath, her chest heaving, as Tomoyo's mouth stopped on her chest just above that vein, just at the top of the swell of her breast.

Sakura cried out as Tomoyo's fangs pierced her; a hot electric surge washed outward from the twin punctures. Hot blood spurted briefly from the pressure of the bite, then welled more slowly; most of it was captured by Tomoyo's hungry mouth and thirsty tongue, but a few drops escaped to slide hot and wet down her breast and her stomach. Tomoyo had been wrong, it did hurt, but the pain was so small and so lost in the glorious torrent of ecstasy as the sheer power of Tomoyo's presence overcame her.

She felt the vampire's hunger, dark and endlessly deep, and the sweet iron tang of her own blood that spiraled down to fill it. In that moment all of her doubts, all her fear and pain was washed away in the ultimate rightness of belonging; and she threw herself into it willingly.

Belowstairs, the orchestra struck up a new number. Sakura straightened and surveyed herself in the mirror, tugging at the skirt of the dress to make it lie flat.

It was one of Tomoyo's new creations; a long dress of pale spring green with light brown and pink accents. The very hem of the dress was a darker brown, rich like wet earth, and above it on the skirt to the knee rose layers and layers of pale pink ruffles. Darker green trim along the seams of the pleats and corset gave the illusion of tree branches swaying in the wind, dropping translucent cherry blossoms to the ground below. It wasn't much like Tomoyo's other dresses, Sakura was sure of that; Tomoyo claimed that Sakura had inspired her.

Her hair had grown out in the past few months; although it still wasn't nearly as long as Tomoyo's, it was long enough to braid and pin up over the head. The low neckline of the dress, curving across the top of her chest and leaving her shoulders bare - left a great bare expanse of neck and collarbone and chest that made Sakura feel at once very grown-up and very exposed. One of the maids had helped her get into the dress, and braided up her hair with fresh flowers; it seemed odd to Sakura that Tomoyo would prefer fresh flowers, which would wither in a matter of days, over silk flowers which could last for ever. But then Tomoyo was strange about things like that.

"Sakura, dear? Are you ready?" Her mistresses' voice floated in through the door on the growing tide of music, and Sakura jumped. She hurried with nervous excitement to finish the last touches; a platinum pendant clasped around her throat, a matching bracelet around her wrist, ringed with diamonds and pale sapphires in gradated sizes. "Coming!" she called out through the door, and rose from her chair. The tug and drag of the hem along the thick carpeted floor was slightly distracting, but Sakura was getting used to moving in clothes like this. The days of faded jeans and holey t-shirts were behind her, now, abandoned with the rest of her old life.

Tomoyo was waiting at the top of the stairs, darkly resplendent in a dress of black lace and deep wine red. Her face lit up in a beaming smile as she saw Sakura, and she held out a black-gloved hand in summons. "Oh, don't you look lovely, now? I knew you would. That dress is absolutely perfect for you, and you wear it so well!"

Obediently Sakura crossed the hallway to Tomoyo's side, and the violet-eyed girl hummed and tutted for a minute as she made a few last-minute changes or adjustments, tucking in a ribbon or a pleat here or there and combing a few locks of light brown hair to tumble over her shoulders. "There, aren't you just a picture. Are your new shoes comfortable? Not too hot, or too binding?"

"Yes, Tomoyo," Sakura said.

"Very good. I will want to dance with you at least twice, tonight. That dress was made to be in motion, and I am beside myself waiting to see it - and you, dear Sakura - in action."

"Oh, but I couldn't," Sakura protested. "I've only had a few lessons so far, I couldn't dance in front of all your guests."

"Nonsense. This is a ball, and at a ball, one dances! I'm sure," and Tomoyo gave Sakura her most winning, gentle smile; "your natural athleticism will take over, and you will simply be the envy of all of the guests there!"

"All right," Sakura gave in. "I'll do my best."

"Of course you will." Tomoyo's smile widened, until the very tips of her fangs peeked out over her lips. Her hands drifted one more time over the neckline of Sakura's dress, fingernails running light as a whisper over the bared skin. She placed her hand under Sakura's chin and tilted it upwards; obediently, Sakura parted her lips as her eyelashes fluttered closed. The kiss was long, deep and wet, and the play of Tomoyo's teeth and tongue over her mouth awoke a deep shivering hunger in Sakura's belly. She almost moaned when Tomoyo pulled away, managing to keep it to only a slightly exhaled breath.

Tomoyo's eyes burned like lavender fire. "Once the ball is over," she murmured in Sakura's ear, "come to my room. That dress was made to contrast with my bedroom floor, as well. I am looking forward to it." She gave the shell of Sakura's ear a little nip - just enough to draw a tiny trace of blood, and then lick it off - before pulling away.

Sakura took a deep, shuddering breath, and had to swallow and clear her throat before she could move. "Yes, Tomoyo," she said.

She could feel the pull of the vampire's will on her own, fathomless and dark and full of a living hunger. Tomoyo's attention, Tomoyo's desire, Tomoyo's command, it all blended together wrapped around her like a cloak, so close and familiar as to be a second skin - as accustomed as the dresses she now wore. She knew it, but it no longer worried or bothered her, not in this new life she found herself sinking into deeper by the day. Balls and parties, feasts and sweets and chandeliers and dances and dazzling dresses and climbing roses swirled about her like a whirlwind; and at the center of it, always waiting, always smiling, was Tomoyo.

"Very good," Tomoyo breathed, and inhaled deeply as though tasting Sakura's perfume - although that was the one thing her mistress had forbidden to go along with the ribbons and dresses and jewelry. Tomoyo took a step back, and her face was smooth and smiling once more. "Remember to eat and drink tonight, my dear," Tomoyo admonished her. "You don't want to get dizzy or overheated on the dance floor."

"Yes, Tomoyo," Sakura said, and Tomoyo laughed - a tinkling sound like windchimes - and turned away for the stairs. The orchestral music swelled, rising in volume and intensity as Tomoyo began to descend.

Sakura followed in her wake, holding her skirt carefully so that she did not trip on the hem; after the dimmed hush of the dressing-room and the upstairs hallways, the light and noise of the party rushed up around her like a dazzling flood. They were using the biggest hallway for this ball, and every chandelier and lamp had been lit up; in the glitter below moved black-suited men and women in bright dresses that glowed like flames.

Outside, time moved on, but in this one space, nothing much changed from one year to the next - there would always be the dance, the talking, laughing, glittering people, like a little slice of Fairyland. And once you had entered that Fairyland, and eaten of its fruit, you could never go back to the real world. But really, why would you want to?

With the dazzle of the crystal chandelier in her eyes, Sakura descended the curving staircase after her mistress.


End file.
